


i'm trying to sleep

by kalpa



Series: the sun will rise, and we will try again [1]
Category: Bandom, Real Person Fiction, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Cutting, Depression, Eating Disorders, M/M, Mental Disorders, Mental Hospital, Mental Illnesses, More characters to come, Psychotic disorders, Sad, Schizophrenia, Self Harm, Starving, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Violence, throwing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalpa/pseuds/kalpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh Dun is fucked up.<br/>Tyler Joseph is fucked up.<br/>And so, they meet in a mental hospital.<br/>----<br/>A more realistic look at what our two favorite smol beans would go through at a mental hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> NOTICE: this story is intense and possibly upsetting. I wrote this after my own hospitalization and used this story to cope with what I went through. This story can be upsetting and graphic. Please note this before reading.   
> If you're having thoughts of suicide or are struggling with self harm, PLEASE reach out to someone. I was scared to reach out - and it was almost too late for me. Things do get better - I promise.
> 
> \---
> 
> hello~~~! welcome to a new story, which will have multiple chapters. i don't know however many yet, but there will be more than one obviously.  
> i've struggled with depression and anxiety for as long as i can remember, and recently, i was sent to a mental hospital twice. i won't go into details about my experience because it is very personal, but after reading multiple fanfictions set in a mental hospital i want to give a new perspective on what Josh and Tyler would go through in a mental hospital. i am definitely not attacking anyone who has written a fanfiction set in a mental hospital. i just want to give a new perspective on what it's like in one.  
> if you find any of the following things triggering, please don;'t read ahead!!!!  
> \- suicide  
> -cutting  
> \- psychotic disorders  
> \- eating disorders  
> \- religion (or hating religion)  
> thank you for reading!!!

“Mama,” he said, voice all cracks and sharp, jagged edges. He shook, pressing his hands together underneath the table. The skin of his palms were sweaty and cold despite the warmth of the room. It was stuffy hot. It was uncomfortably hot. It was burning him.

He took a deep breath, air shuttering in his lungs as he spoke. “Mama...  I’ve done something I shouldn’t have done,” he confessed. There was no reply. “Mama… Mr. Evans found the snip...the snip I’ve always used. He found it and saw my map, and when he saw my map, he took me to the counselor. And she told me...she told me she’d tell Papa.”

He looked down.

And then he looked back up. 

“But Papa just said “I’m sorry”, and then he opened up the wine bottle and drank himself to sleep. Why did I do that, Mama? Now Papa won’t wake up, and I think I should go to sleep too,” he told her, and she simply stared. He knew she wouldn’t respond. She never did. Not when Zack stepped out the door and never stepped back in. Not when his siblings went away to a greater life, leaving him behind. Not when Papa loaded up his shotgun and sang a sad tune to the beat of gunshots. 

“Why did I do that?” He breathed, resting his head against his intertwined fingers. “Why did I do that?” 

He stood up, opening up the door that led to his bedroom. Books were thrown around, pages ripped and stained from nights spent singing away the angels and fucking the demons. His ukulele hung up on the wall, and he pulled it down, getting on the tips of his toes. With a soft strum he hummed, pulling out a blade from under the rug. He ran it along his tongue, singing as he bled and bled and bled. 

The pills tasted bad, but the aftertaste was great. He threw up on his chair but kept singing anyways, determined to lull his life to sleep.

And so he closed his eyes. 

And so, Tyler Joseph died. 

* * *

 

It was Josh Dun’s twentieth day in a mental hospital. Or was it twenty first? He wasn’t sure. When you stared at white walls and dying kids, things stopped making sense after a while. And things stopped making sense long before that twentieth or twenty first day. 

He spent most of his days there hiding in his room, carving up his skin with a pencil he had slipped into his sleeve and into his room. The nurses there didn’t do body checks, anyways. Instead, they asked you how you felt and if you had any urges. “No” rolled of his tongue easier than his own name, and he began to live his life in a pattern, a self destructive routine. 

Josh would wake up at 8 am, sit in the shower until breakfast was done, grab his bobby pins from under his long desk, and step out for a few minutes. His care provider, aka the person who constantly watched him and cared for him, would always lock his bedroom door, telling him he had to go to classes. Sometimes, Josh would comply. He would go to group therapy at nine am, listen to the kids singing their own songs to the beat of their misery, and go to activity therapy at ten. Sometimes they would paint, sometimes they would play a dumb game, and sometimes they would do yoga.

But more often than not, Josh would shove his care provider aside, tell him that he was feeling sick and needed to be let in, throw up dinner from yesterday night, and then lay in bed all day. If they knew he was faking sick, they didn’t say anything. Instead the nurses watched him with sad eyes, and his doctors didn’t know what to do. If they called his bluff, Josh would just pick his way back in. At one point, Josh even broke the glass of the window on his door and tried to wiggle back in. Blood had coated the floor, and Josh had gotten stuck halfway inside. There’d been a code blue, a syringe stuck in his butt, and he’d woken up in the mental hospital’s infirmary. 

And on that twenty first day, Josh had been literally dragged out of his room and shoved into the living area where they did some classes and ate. Roughly fifteen kids were seated around five tables with four tables, all tired and surprised to see Josh’s face. They were more surprised to see the bandages covering his entire right and left arm, and a few scratches on his face. No one asked questions when he sat down by himself, chewing on his lip so hard he bled. Yet they all stared, and it bothered him. 

“Hey, can you all fuck off?” He finally said, and everyone looked away. His care provider scowled at him, and Josh rolled his eyes, resting his head in his arms. He didn’t want to be out here, he didn’t want to be in a mental hospital, and he didn’t want to be alive. So what fucked up God decided to put him in all the places where he didn’t want to be? What fucked up God prevented the rope from working? What fucked up God let his mom walk in on him suspended, grabbing at his throat as he approached his ending? 

There was a sudden shifting in a seat across from him, and Josh looked up with weary eyes, prepared to yell at whatever patient decided to piss him off. Yet instead, he clamped his mouth shut when he looked at the face of the kid who had overdosed in the school bathroom at least two times. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t standardly attractive either. He was the in between, the average kid who no one really had anything to say about. 

His skin was pale and there were dark circles around his eyes, probably from lack of sleep or from being alive. He wore a long shirt that carefully covered his arms, and from how he sat with his hands on his lap, Josh knew there was something fresh there. While Josh rarely came out of his room, he knew damn well who was here, why they were here, and how long they’d been there. And this kid...he was new. And that disrupted his routine dramatically. 

Josh frowned, watching the kid with silent eyes. The kid was simply staring down at the table, but after a moment he looked up the two held eye contact. Josh felt something flutter in his chest as he looked into those eyes. He looked so broken, so destroyed. What fucked up God would put a blade in his hands and let him destroy his body, his mind? 

They didn’t say anything to each other for the longest of time. It felt as though the universe held its breath and waited for one to speak, to trigger such a significant change of events that everything associated with them would bend and turn with the universe. Yet neither knew. Josh simply stared, and the boy did as well. Both were as ignorant of the ties that held them and moved them as the next person. 

So maybe because of this ignorance nothing happened. Neither spoke, and Josh was the first to look down at his hands under the table, trying to stifle the nervous flutter in his stomach. The boy didn’t look away for a few more moments, and his gaze was burning hot on Josh’s body.

After his attendance was taken for breakfast and his vitals were taken, Josh hurried to his room faster than ever before, picked the lock with shaking and sweaty fingers, and sprained his fingers and hand from punching the wall as hard as he could. 

When his therapist asked him why he had done such a thing, Josh merely stared at him, before looking back down at his bandaged hand. After a moment, Josh shrugged, shaking his head. “I was angry.”

“Why were you so angry, Josh?”

Said man looked up at his old therapist with intense eyes, and spoke the words no therapist would ever let go. “Because God is dead, and I’m going to kill him.”


	2. Blurryface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Tyler's first day, and hopefully his last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit...32 kudos in just 24 hours?? Thank you guys SOOOOO much!!! I am so happy to see that you guys like this so far and want more!!!  
> this chapter includes the following:  
> alcoholism  
> death  
> suicide attempt  
> suicide  
> self harm  
> eating disorders  
> sex ???  
> so if ANY of this is triggering, please don't read!!!  
> thank you for reading!!!

Tyler Joseph was not dead, and there was something very, very wrong with that. There’d been a reason why he’d bought three bottles of sleeping pills with all his money, and cracked his father’s empty wine bottle. There’d been a reason why he had painted his skin red, and, at 3 pm, went to sleep. There’d been a reason he’d tried to die. 

So what fucked up God kept him alive? What fucked up God reported there being a weird smell from his apartment? What fucked up God reported hearing screaming from his apartment when his father had been dancing with his alcohol and Tyler had been soaking in his fiends? 

What fucked up God made him wake up in the hospital with nurses constantly surveying him and his doctors asking him questions he was never meant to answer? What fucked up God made him be wheeled into a mental hospital, and be given a room next to a kid who constantly drummed on his desk with God knows what? What fucked up God made him be number 16 on the roster, and be forced to eat three meals a day and to live?

Tyler wasn’t crazily religious, but he did believe that there was a God. His Mama had always taught him to love God, and they would always go to Church every Sunday while his Papa indulged in a little bit too much wine and Mama always wore long white cardigans to cover the bruises on her arms. He’d gone to youth group, where the kids would drink and smoke instead of read the bible. Tyler stopped going after a while because he was frightened the drunk kids would grab his wrist like Papa. His Mama always understood, giving him a knife at age of eleven in case Papa ever took out the shotgun like he always said. 

That knife went to a different demon once Mama died. She was never meant to die. She was just in the passenger seat one night when Papa was driving her to the hospital after she started fainting. Of course, Papa had had too much wine, and he did a weird swerve, and then Mama fainted and never woke up again. 

Once Mama didn’t take the hits and Papa moved onto beer, Tyler began to fight back but in a different way. It started when the girl Jenna kissed him, drunk under the school bleachers one Friday night. She’d told him how amazing he was, and put her hand in his back pocket. They spent every Friday getting drunk and forging themselves into one another. Jenna began to speak every word Tyler breathed, and soon Tyler was her right hand. 

For three years, Tyler was beside her wherever she went. They drank from the same bottle, fucked the same bodies, and lived each other’s lives. And then Jenna drank too much, and Tyler woke up in the hospital and she was pronounced dead. Her parents never spoke to him, and he had to hide for her funeral. The knife became ingrained in his skin, and he never looked at himself the same. 

Tyler was dying from the very beginning, and so he could only be dead in the end. 

So what fucked up God decided to make him live? 

The first day in the mental hospital, which Tyler had no idea what it was called, was hell. The doctors had to run an assessment and “no”s and “yes”s became the leading words in his vocabulary. He rarely admitted to anything in hopes they would just let him out of there, so that he could complete his mission. Yet they were smarter than he anticipated, and quickly diagnosed him. 

“Mr. Joseph...we’re starting you on some antidepressants and some anti-psychotics,” his doctor told him in the late afternoon of his first day. Tyler wasn’t surprised. Blurryface had frequently told him that this was not normal, and that he was fucked up in the head. Yet Blurryface did not predict that they would notice, and when the doctor mentioned the anti psychotics, Blurryface flipped utter shit. There was a high frequency pitch ringing in his ears as Blurryface screamed, and Tyler’s face twitched every now and then as he tried to not grab his head and listen to the voice in his head. His doctor seemed to notice, yet he made no comment, and dismissed Tyler. 

As he had for the entire day, Tyler returned to his room, quickly running into the bathroom to try and deal with Blurryface. The voice kept screaming at him to not take the meds, to get this over with so that they could both be free from his fucked up head. Tyler looked around desperately to find any means of escape, yet instead he was met with a toilet, a shower and a sink enclosed with tile walls. 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Tyler hissed, pulling at his hair. Blurryface growled back, yet quieted down as he knew that Tyler would listen to him. Tyler took a deep breath, rubbed at his eyes, and sat down in the middle of the bathroom, looking around for anything that he could use to get closer to his goal. The mental hospital wasn’t entirely stupid when it came to what to allow the patients to have in their rooms, but Tyler wasn’t entirely stupid on how to twist even the most safe objects into dangerous weapons. 

Taking a deep breath, he shakily grabbed the toothbrush they’d given him when he’d arrived. It would take time, but he could easily sharpen it into a point. Blurryface seethed at the idea of having to wait, but was well aware that this would be the best option at the time. Next time Tyler went out of his room, he could steal a plastic fork, or a pencil. But right then and thre, the easiest option was to sharpen the toothbrush. 

And so Tyler went to work, sharpening it on the edge of the sink. 

* * *

 

Three hours later, Tyler was forced out of his room to go to dinner. He knew he must’ve looked bad considering how many people stared at him, but the stares weren’t unusual and Tyler knew how to conceal how insane he felt. What he did not anticipate, however, was for people to ask questions. 

He sat across from a skinny boy whose bones jutted out and who stared at him as though he were as much of a monster as he felt. Blurryface began to speak angry words at how the boy stared at him from across his seat, and Tyler chewed on his lip to try and submerge him deep into his mind. Yet Blurryface was too loud, and soon Tyler began to speak. 

“You look as though you died long ago, so why are you here? Is there nowhere else to go?” Tyler asked the boy, and the boy raised his eyebrows before looking down at his feet. 

After a few moments in which the boy didn’t speak, Tyler pulled on his own sleeves. Blurryface was upset because of his voice, and Tyler began to itch at his forearms. What neither he and the zombie boy expected was a boy with bright hair to sit down at their table. Tyler quickly recognized him as the boy from before, and looked away in hopes he wouldn’t speak. 

Yet the world was against Tyler, and the bright boy began to talk. 

“You’re new, aren’t you?” He asked, and Tyler looked up at him from under his brow. Bright boy looked as though he didn’t want to be here, and based on the red streaks on his arms, he didn’t want to be  _ here  _ in life at all. Tyler nodded slightly, and bright boy smiled bitterly. “Welcome to Tree Pine, where all your dreams die and you die with them,” he joked, and Tyler smiled slightly at that.

Zombie boy snorted in response, and bright boy grinned and punched his arm. Zombie boy hissed and rubbed at his forearm, and one of the staff said, “Joshua, you know not to touch. This is a warning.” 

“Joshua”, or bright boy as Blurryface and Tyler liked to call him, rolled his eyes, and zombie boy giggled under his breath. “My name’s Josh, and that there is Patrick. He’s in for bulimia,” Josh told Tyler, and Patrick looked greatly uncomfortable under both of their gazes. “So, new kid, what’s your name?” Josh asked, looking interested. 

Tyler looked back down at his lap, and picked at his fingers. Neither Josh or Patrick spoke as they waited for him to speak, yet before Tyler could open his mouth to reply another boy sat next to them. He had dark eyes outlined with eyeliner, and he wore a grin largely on his face. Patrick’s cheeks brightened at his presence, and Josh gave Tyler a look that suggested it was going to get awkward.

“Hey, newbie. What’s up? I’m Pete, and I’m fucked up. But who isn’t here, right?” He laughed, and Tyler clearly looked uncomfortable. Pete hummed in acknowledgement of Tyler’s awkwardness, and turned his attention to Patrick, who looked as though he were going to spontaneously combust. “Hey there, Pattie. How’s it going?” “Pattie” didn’t reply after a few moments, and Pete sighed. 

“Pete’s in here for severe depression and anxiety. How many days is it now?” Josh asked, and Pete sighed, leaning back in his chair as he counted on his fingers. 

Pete pursed his lips, and shrugged. “I dunno...I think...twenty five?” 

Josh laughed, and they both high fived. “Nice, nice. You gettin discharged soon?” 

Pete chuckled, pulling up his sleeve to show new cuts on his skin. Josh furrowed his eyebrows, unsure of what to say. Tyler felt his heart stutter at how clean and well done the wounds were, and Blurryface made him say, “How did you do that?” 

Everyone looked up at the sound of his voice, and Pete pulled out a small blade. Tyler frowned as Pete leaned in closer. “There’s pencil sharpeners here. They always watch you sharpen your pencils, but thanks to Josh here breaking into his room one morning, I picked one up. Not sure if Josh would do that for you though. You’re too cute to have dead,” Pete whispered, and Tyler felt his cheeks catch on fire, as he stuttered and looked away. Pete chuckled, and turned towards Patrick. “Don’t worry, Pattie. You’ll always be my waifu,” Pete cooed, and Josh broke out laughing as Patrick rolled his eyes, looking away. 

Josh turned towards Tyler. “Patrick is Pete’s, in case you didn’t notice. Surprisingly, the staff haven’t noticed. Or else they’d be put on peer boundaries,” Josh told Tyler, and at the look of confusion on Tyler’s face Josh elaborated. “Peer boundaries is where you can’t talk to each other for a certain amount of time. Pete and I were on it for like...two weeks because he gave me a piggy back ride to get more bananas.” Both of the men started laughing loudly, and Tyler found himself giggling with the,. At the sound of his laugh, Josh looked at him with unreadable eyes and a soft smile. “Welcome to Tree Pine, newbie. Let’s hope we make it out of here alive.” 

That night, Tyler dug the toothbrush deep into his arms, and when he was pulled into an ambulance, he thought he was dead. 

But then he woke up in a hospital bed. 

And Tyler and Blurryface screamed all day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay for the next chapter, let's try to get to 50 kudos??? sound good???  
> thank you for reading!!!  
> please leave a comment and feedback!!! it makes me so happy ahh  
> have a great day!!!!!


	3. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh deals with Tyler's suicide attempt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! sorry for the small chapter. it doesn't even compare to the length of last one's. sorry about that.   
> if your triggers include anything below, please don't read or be cautious!!!  
> self harm  
> suicide  
> eating problems   
> and slang such as "faggot"  
> i hope you enjoy!!!

News that the new kid had tried to kill himself, and with a  _ toothbrush,  _ spread quickly through Tree Pine. There’d been a loud alarm ringing throughout the facility at eleven pm, followed by a man’s voice saying, “Code Red” over the speakers. Everyone had tried to peek out of their windows, but a few care providers had hung back to try and help the patients stay calm and in their rooms. Josh had been one of the first to step out of his room, rubbing at his eyes in confusion and worry. 

Patrick had quickly walked quietly towards him as people rushed to the room next to Josh’s, and they both realized together that something awful had happened to the new kid. A care provider took Josh by his arms and pulled him away from the room as he began to hyperventilate. The smell of blood was heavy in the air, and Patrick turned and ran back into his room, his gags barely audible over the alarm. Josh sat down in the corner of the hall, resting his head on the cool wall that separated the facility from the outside world. 

Pete eventually walked out of his room as paramedics ran in with a gurney, yet he was quickly ushered back into his room. The care providers began to force people back into their rooms as the paramedics ran into the new kid’s room, yet Josh remained in his corner, breathing rapid and eyes wide. He had nowhere to go. There was no way he could go back to his room while a kid was dying or dead next to him. Thankfully, no one else was next to the new kid except him, so he sat alone. 

A care provider walked over to him, helped him up and ushered him to an empty room in the other hall. There, he collapsed onto his bed, slowly trying to calm himself and his breathing. And with his panic came his need to calm down. There was nothing in his room that he could use to calm himself, so he quietly asked his care provider for a marker and some paper. Without even a second glance, they got a few sheets of paper for him and a red marker. Thanking them with a convincing smile, Josh shrank back into the bathroom, where no one could see him. He took a shaky breath, lined the paper up on his wrist, and drew a long, slow red line on his skin with the paper. 

Josh winced, as paper cuts were not the preferable cut to get, yet continued to make lines on his skin. As the cuts appeared more and more on his arm, he felt the panic begin to diminish and settled into a low, barely noticeable mass in his stomach. There wasn’t much blood dripping from his skin in the end, and he pulled down his sleeve and crawled onto his new bed. 

It wasn’t until three am when the alarm ended, and, hopefully, the new kid didn’t end with it. 

* * *

 

The next day was full of rumors and silence. The staff was extra attentive to the patients, and was even doubled. Josh felt worry appear once he saw all the careful eyes watching them all, yet once none showed any signs of body checks he simmered down. He sat next to Patrick, who was twiddling with a straw as Pete talked to him about a new song he’d written. Once they both saw Josh sitting down, they peeked up at him with curious eyes. 

“Did you hear what happened?” Pete asked, leaning forward on his elbows in interest. Josh raised an eyebrow, pressing him on. “New kid tried to kill himself,” Pete whispered, looking around at the staff to make sure they weren’t being listened to. Tree Pine had strict rules that no patients talk about one another, especially about any emergencies pertaining to a patient. They could easily get on peer boundaries for talking about what they were at the moment. 

Josh rolled his eyes, poking his foot with a plastic fork in disinterest. “I kinda figured from all the blood,” he replied, and Patrick put down his straw, clearly not interested in eating if he even was. Pete’s eyes widened at his comment, however, and he sat back in his seat in disbelief. 

“Did you see it?”

“No.”

“Then…?”

Josh chewed on his lips, remembering the strong, coppery smell stagnating in the air. “You could smell it,” he murmured, and Pete’s face twisted into disgust. He ran his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath. 

“Jesus…”

Josh just nodded, unsure of what to say. Patrick just shook his head. “Do you think...he’s alive?” He asked, voice barely audible as it quivered. 

Josh took a deep breath. “I hope so… I hope so.” Something about how the new kid looked up at him from under his brow with such wide and lovable eyes hung onto him like that cat in those cliche posters. The way that he pulled on his sleeves and how he always scrunched in on himself haunted him with the smell of his blood, and Josh decided that he wouldn’t eat.

* * *

 

“What was it like last night for you, Josh?” His therapist asked him later that day in a green office with degrees and charts hung up along the wall. The man had taken of his glasses, setting them on the table as he waited for Josh’s answer. 

Said man shrugged, leaning back in the comfy chair. “I dunno...it kinda sucked,” he said, trying not to actually confront the subject. Hearing the alarms that announced a cute new kid was possibly dead wasn’t exactly how he wanted to spend his night, or any of his time. Barely being able to sleep because you swear that it still smells like blood and when you smell your clothes to smell just  _ you  _ there’s still that coppery tang that you can’t forget. When you go to brush your teeth that night, you can only imagine it digging into the new kid’s skin and you find yourself feeling more dirty than clean. 

His therapist clearly understood that it was a much more complex topic, and so he adjusted his position to a more serious one. Josh looked up at him with wide eyes, expecting to hear that a kid died next to him while he just hated himself and wanted to die like him. Maybe it was good Josh was in a mental hospital to experience a death. Or maybe it was bad. He wasn’t sure. 

“Well,” he began, clearing his throat. Josh’s heart was in his chest as he waited to fall apart, to never smell anything other than a kid’s death and to see nothing but his wide eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that he’s perfectly stable, and will be returning to us tomorrow morning.” 

Josh breathed a long sigh of relief, dropping his head into his hands. The therapist smiled at him fondly, nodding mostly to himself. “He lost a lot of blood, but nothing we couldn’t handle,” the therapist informed him, and Josh nodded. “We’ll have him under constant watch, and we’ll be returning you to your room since the crisis has passed.”

Josh quickly remembered the strong smell of blood near there, and he began to chew on his lips at the thought. “Does it...not smell?” He asked, and the therapist quickly understood his implications. He quickly nodded, and Josh stopped chewing. 

“Now, is there anything else you wish to talk about? How about...when your depression began?” Josh’s therapist asked, and the man quickly stiffened. Memories began to return. 

_ Loud voices. _

_ “Faggot.” _

_ Alcohol.  _

_ “Mine.” _

_ Drugs. _

_ “Mine!” _

_ Blood. _

_ Blood. _

_ Blood. _

* * *

 

Josh didn’t eat that day. 

And by the time he fell asleep, he’d written three songs, and his toothbrush was a few millimeters deep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, i'll upload the next chapter once it hits 75 FOR SURE. but not immediately once it hits 75. u feel??  
> if you enjoyed this,   
> PLEASE leave kudos!  
> and  
> PLEASE leave a comment!!!  
> thank you very much for reading!  
> have a good day!!!


	4. Hall 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler and Josh finally talk, and things go awry when Blurryface controls Tyler's mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!!   
> things will finally be changing for Tyler and Josh when the mental hospital realizes that basic care won't work, so things should get interesting!!!  
> if any of the following triggers you please dont read or be cautious!!!  
> self harm  
> blood  
> schizophrenia   
> suicide   
> thanks for reading!

 

Tyler returned 56 hours after staining his bathroom tiles and his green carpet with his blood. When he walked back into Tree Pine, the staff gave him a long, uncomfortable smile and were extra careful and kind with him. Blurryface didn’t like the special treatment, and Tyler found himself agreeing. Neither of them liked to be treated as though they could snap at any given moment.

Blurryface didn’t like it because it made him feel as though he were being restrained, being watched. It made him feel as though he had his hands tied behind his back in what he could do. Tyler didn’t like the long smiles and observative eyes because it made him feel like a monster. People observing him like he was an animal made him feel less human than before, feel like he were a threat.

Yet neither said or did anything, and continued on with their lives with one another at Tree Pine. 

When Tyler walked back into his room for the first time since his suicide attempt, he saw that the curtains used to grant patients some privacy when going to the bathroom and showering had been removed. The toothbrush staff gave him was entirely made of rubber, incapable of being sharpened. Yet Tyler immediately felt his heart race at the realization he could burn himself with it, and Blurryface began to push him to do it. 

Once his nurse gave him back his clothes which had been washed free of blood, she left him alone, sitting outside his door so that he could be under constant surveillance. Tyler chewed on his lip as he felt her eyes constantly following him wherever he went, impatience and distress bubbling up into his throat. He took a deep breath as panic overtook him, shaking his leg viciously in an attempt to calm down. Yet Blurryface began to scream, and the toothbrush was so bright and blue in his white tile bathroom, and the sink was too cold and not warm enough to turn his skin pink, and his thoughts were singing a familiar tune and…

A knock echoed throughout his room, resonating from the wall behind his bed. Tyler looked up at it in bewilderment, recognizing that it was from the other room beside him. He wasn’t sure if Josh was still next to him or if they’d moved him away, yet there was someone over there. At first, Tyler just sat on his bed, looking at the wall as though it’d just turned purple. Blurryface figured that it was an accident, yet once there were two more knocks Tyler figured out it was not an accident. 

“Uh...hello?” Tyler squeaked, and he heard faint laughter in the room over. His cheeks became hot and red at the laugh, and figured he was just another laughing stock until there was a reply. 

“Yes! You can hear me!” A familiar voice cheered, and Tyler felt butterflies replace the distress flying around in his chest. Unable to resist, a grin stretched Tyler’s mouth, and he laughed too. 

“Yeah, yeah...I can,” Tyler said, and he imagined Josh fist pumping up in the air. 

“Yesss! Brendon told me that he used to knock back and forth with Pete, and eventually they got put on peer boundaries for it...They just kept knocking and used morse code instead,” Josh told him, and Tyler laughed aloud. It wasn’t very loud, yet it was clearly loud enough for Josh to hear. “Aww...your laugh is so cute!” He cooed, and Blurryface shrank back at the fondness in his voice. Tyler just looked at the wall with wide eyes, unable to understand that he’d just been complimented, and by such a ho-...good looking guy. For a few moments, Tyler didn’t say anything, simply because he didn’t  _ know  _ what the hell to say. The few times he’d been complimented, it’d been whiskey’d been in his veins and Jenna’s hands in his pants with sex hot in the air. 

“Uh...ha...thanks…” Tyler murmured, and Josh  _ had  _ to have his ear pushed up against the wall because he somehow still heard it. 

“No problem! Anyways, I’m going to class. You coming?” Josh asked, and Tyler looked back over to the toothbrush on his sink. He chewed on his lips, thinking as both Tyler and Blurryface. Tyler wanted to go, and to get better and meet people and have fun. But Blurryface wanted to rub the toothbrush up and down his arms until every inch of skin was bleeding and raw. 

“No...sorry,” Tyler replied, and Josh sighed. 

“Aww...that sucks. Well, see ya, new kid!” Josh said, and Tyler heard his door open and close as Josh left. Tyler sat there with his legs crossed on the middle of his bed, just looking at the wall and he rubbed at his scars on his right arm. He didn’t really know what to do. He could either listen to himself, or Blurryface. Picking up the toothbrush and giving in sounded so nice and easy, yet going to class and talking to the other patients sounded so hard but so good. 

Tyler stood up, walked forward, opened his door, and followed Josh, who was sitting down at the end of the wall with a cheeky grin on his face. Tyler quickly stopped in his tracks as his mouth opened in surprise when Josh ran forward, standing next to him tall and proud. “I knew you’d come, new kid,” he cheered, and Tyler looked down, rubbing at this back of his head as he laughed quietly. Josh simply stared, eyes crinkling harshly as he continued to smile. “So, what’s your name? New kid doesn’t really fit you anymore since you’re not too new,” Josh asked, and Tyler looked up at him. 

_ My name’s Blurryface.  _

“My name’s...Tyler.”

Josh held out his hand, and Tyler air shook it as Josh grinned down at him. 

“I’m Josh.”

_ And I care what you think.  _

* * *

 

When Tyler actually raised his hand to report he was present for the class, everyone looked at him as though he were an alien. Which would actually be kinda cool if he was one, but he wasn’t. So it kinda was awkward and it made Blurryface shift inside of him in a way that made him feel icky. Josh just smiled at his awkward expression, and it slowly transformed into a grin when Tyler saw his expression, blushed and began to play with his hoodie. 

“So, Tyler, what’s your favorite game?” The teacher lady asked him, and he perked up at the question. 

“Super Smash Bros!!! Or MarioKart64!” He replied happily, and Josh rolled his eyes, propping his legs up on Pete’s lap. Pete shot him a dirty look, yet let him keep his feet there, and Josh winked at Tyler. 

“ _ Peer boundaries,”  _ he whispered, and Tyler couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at his joke. 

“Mr. Josh Dunn?” The lady called, and Josh raised his hand as high as it could go. 

“Present! And...Zelda!” He mimicked Link’s weird little cry, and everyone laughed a little bit, even the teacher who rolled her eyes. Tyler wondered how much shit Josh and Pete had caused collectively, and how often they’d been on peer boundaries if they weren’t even afraid. 

Maybe class wouldn’t be so boring…

* * *

 

Tyler was completely wrong.

Class was the most boring shit he’d attended ever since Algebra in the eighth grade. His teacher had droned on about how it related to economics and what they could use it for in a job. It’d been his first hour too, so he usually just slept, barely passed the class and moved on with his boring life. 

Listening to the lady tell them what coping skills they should use and talk about healthy relationships and what they looked like reminded him of those boring moments spent in the gray classroom. He knew what a healthy relationship looked like, even if he’d never been in one. It’s where you loved them and they loved you and everything was okay. 

But the lady kept saying they can’t fix you, and you can’t fix them. Anxiety bubbled hot in his chest at that comment, realizing that no one could ever healthily help him. No one could just pull him down on their lap, kiss him, and fix him. 

It meant he was on his own. 

Blurryface and him. 

They had each other, and could never have another.

“So, Tyler, what are you here for?” Pete asked him once the teacher let them talk. Tyler looked at him with wide eyes, mouth open as he fought for something to say. Wasn’t it obvious? He was fucked up pretty bad. Why  _ wouldn’t  _ he be here? 

Josh looked at him angrily, frown prominent on his face. “Bro,” he hissed, and Pete realized his mistake. 

“Oh...shit...sorry if that was triggering,” Pete apologized, a small, cheeky grin bright on his face. He rubbed at the back of his head, and Tyler shrugged, picking at the scabs on his wrist. 

“I...I have depression,” he finally told them, and Pete snorted. Josh punched his arm, and Pete held up his hand in defense. 

“Whoa, I didn’t mean that to be mean but...I mean...If you’re  _ here _ , there’s no way you’re not depressed, you feel?” He explained, and Tyler nodded as Blurryface seethed. 

**_He’s a dick._ **

_ He was joking.  _

**_He thinks you don’t belong here. He just want Josh to himself._ **

_ Wait...what?! _

Tyler’s eyebrows were furrowed profusely as he spoke with Blurryface, forgetting completely that he was having a conversation with Josh and Pete. The other two didn’t say anything for a few moments, looking at each other in confusion before looking back at him. Josh gently reached over, poking his arm. Tyler jumped high in his seat, standing up on the opposite side of the table from Josh.

Josh’s eyes were huge as he stared at him with an open mouth, unsure of what to say. Whatever the other patients were talking about stopped as they moved their attention towards him. With all the eyes on him and Blurryface yelling at him to leave and get away, Tyler began to breathe heavily, grabbing at his forearms as though he were cold.

Some care providers approached him, yet he shoved them away and ran into his room. He knew they would try to enter his room, so ,with however much strength he’d gained from basketball, he grabbed his mattress and dragged it in front of his door. Tyler stood back, looking at his barricade as people tried to get in and talk to him. 

“No!” He yelled, scurrying into his bathroom, grabbing his toothbrush. He tried to burn himself with it, yet with his shaky hands and wet skin. With a deep breath, he threw his toothbrush out of the bathroom, ripping the toilet seat off with a few harsh, frantic tugs. Ceramic went flying, and he picked up a sharp piece of it and dug it into his forearm, dragging it as deep as he could go. 

“Mama!” He yelled, barely audible over the yelling from care providers and now security guards. The alarm sounded, familiar with the coppery tang of his blood. All Tyler did was laugh though, resting his head on the wall. “Mama! I’ve done something I shouldn’t. And now I’m like that star...the one that died. I’m dying like a star, Mama. Do you think I’ll leave remnants?”

* * *

 

Josh didn’t go back to his room that night. 

Instead he was moved to Hall 3, where he sat in an empty room and didn’t dream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post the next chapter at 100 kudos!!!  
> (if we actually get to 100 kudos i will cry omg)  
> thank you for reading!! i hope u enjoyed!!!  
> please leave a comment or feedback! it makes my day!  
> have a great day or night!


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh encounters Tyler.  
> Tyler encounters Josh.  
> Their experience is strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!!   
> i thought you deserved the update before 100 kudos because of the super nice comments you guys left!!! those comments made me so, so, so happy like i just started smiling when i saw them in my first hour at school aha  
> so here's the next chapter!!!   
> triggers for this chapter:  
> self harm  
> religion talk ? (crucifixes mention)  
> schizophrenia  
> screaming

Hall 3 was about as boring as boring could get. There were plain white walls with weird, rubbery chairs that were so heavy not even Josh could pick them up. He’d tried when his doctor had told him he’d have to stay in Hall 3 until he stopped self harming and being a danger to others and himself. Instead of throwing the furniture and hurting his doctor, however, Josh simply fell, grabbed his hair and slammed the door into his new room. 

For some reason, Hall 3 was much smaller than the rest of the Halls, and its bedrooms were split in half to accommodate two patients. No one was Josh’s partner, and he hoped it stayed that way, but as time went on, Tree Pine continued to get more and more patients. He wouldn’t be surprised if Hall 3 was used as an overflow area. 

Instead of going out of the locked hall and attending classes, Josh was instead assigned to journaling. From after breakfast to nine in the evening, Josh would simply write. They gave him prompts, but they were boring and dumb. The prompts ranged from “what’s your happiest memory” to “what would you do if someone dropped a ten dollar bill?”. So instead of answering the prompts, Josh simply wrote poems, and, eventually, songs. 

It was his second day in Hall 3 when Tyler was dragged into Hall 3, kicking and screaming at the nurses who had a hold on him. Josh wasn’t surprised to see him in Hall 3, yet he was surprised, and mildly terrified, to see his actions. He’d known something more than depression was wrong with Tyler, and seeing him just confirmed his suspicions. 

“Josh,” Hayley, his care provider, said. Josh looked over at her, fear evident on his face. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. Let’s go to your room okay?” He nodded, quickly rushing out of the area. Even though he couldn’t see Tyler, he could still hear his screams as they ushered him into a room where he couldn’t hurt himself or others. Hayley sat in a chair across from his bed as he curled up into the blankets, trying to muffle the sounds. 

Thankfully, Hayley didn’t say anything, and even left once the yelling and banging on the door of the “safety” room got worse. She apologized to him and quickly ran out, and Josh sat up in his bed, watching her run out. He took a deep breath, realizing he would be alone until they got Tyler under control, or until they moved him out of Hall 3 until Tyler was stabilized. Out of Hall 3, he would be constantly monitored. So he took the chance. 

Josh quickly hopped to his feet, looking around for anything he could use to get some much needed relief. The staff didn’t allow him to take paper back to his room, and everyone had been given new, safety toothbrushes after both Tyler’s and his own incidents. Pencils were closely monitored, and if there was even one missing, every patient would be held back until someone gave it up. So Josh used the only thing he could: his nails.

He’d carefully avoided chewing on his nails like he constantly had been. It’d become a nervous habit, and he’d began to just bite on his cuticles instead of his nails in preparation for this moment. They weren’t disgustingly long, but his nails were long enough to break skin. 

With a deep breath, Josh pressed his nails into his arm as hard as he could. Blades would’ve been both better and easier, as nails were much more difficult to puncture skin and hurt much more. Josh didn’t mind the pain, but he wanted to bleed. The blood was the best part of the job for him. 

The screaming from Tyler subdued, and Josh realized that either Hayley would be fetching him or he would be moved out of Hall 3. He quickly pulled his sleeve down, steadying himself before Hayley opened the door with a tired smile. “Hey Josh. We got it all handled. Tyler’s calm so you can come out now,” she told him, and Josh mustered as real of a smile as he could as he followed her out of his room. 

When he entered the somewhat large dining and living area of Hall 3, there was blood everywhere. It caked the walls and the floors, and staff were quickly cleaning it up. At the smell of the blood, Josh stiffened, eyes widening as Hayley quickly turned towards him, somewhat confused until she remembered his triggers. Her hands covered her mouth in horror at the late realization, and Josh began to hyperventilate, retreating back to his room when a voice called him back. 

“Josh?” A familiar, small voice called, so lost in his own sea of grief that he couldn’t get up to the surface to see his own beauty. Josh stopped, looking behind Hayley in hope and surprise. Tyler stood there, arms covered in bandages and white shirt caked in his own suffering. Under the harsh brightness of the ceiling lights, Tyler looked like an angel had just fought against a demon and lost. Josh’s heart stuttered at both the sight and sound of Tyler, and Tyler cocked his head at him in such a way that Josh didn’t care if he was bleeding. “You look like you fell apart upon yourself and tried to dig under the floor. Are you trying to bury yourself, or just your dreams?” Tyler asked, and Josh shrugged.

“You look like you tried to pray for forgiveness, but looks like we were both abandoned and left to crucifixes in the shape of our blades,” Josh replied in a similar manner, and Tyler simply nodded. 

“No, not abandoned…”

“Killed.”

Tyler nodded.

“Yes.” 

* * *

 

Once the blood had been mopped up and everything had been sprayed with disinfectant, Tyler and Josh sat across from each other at a table, writing songs with one another. Tyler was mostly silent, yet his expressions and movements spoke the words he didn’t. Whenever Josh made a dumb joke, Tyler would smile, and his shoulders would relax ever so slightly. Whenever Josh made a self deprecatory comment, Tyler’s eyebrows would furrow ever so slightly, jaw tightening in such a maddening way that Josh just wanted to kiss it away, 

He wasn’t sure why he wanted to kiss Tyler, but maybe it was because those lips never opened and when they did, he became enchanted and the blade didn’t seem like the best thing. Whatever the reason, Josh didn’t kiss him, and instead talked to him, and, when that goddamn raspy voice spoke, listened to him. 

In a way, they became each other’s therapy while still depending on themselves. It didn’t take long before they began to write a song together, a collaboration of the insane and the mundane. Tyler began to write about Blurryface while Josh began to write about his childhood, spent high up in trees wondering what space was like. Watching Tyler write his thoughts and Josh’s words was like watching the universe be created in front of him; astounding fast, hot, and gorgeous. It was the creation of life, and the burning of death. 

Josh loved it. 

Josh craved it.

At first, Josh was told Tyler would be in the room across from him, and he’d felt hot disappointment swirling around in his chest. Tyler’s face had become paler at the mention, handwriting becoming sloppier and taking on a whole new personality. When Josh had gently whispered Tyler’s name, the boy had shook his head, standing up and ripping his paper, his song to shreds. Josh jumped up, trying to calm Tyler when the boy’s care provider took him into the safety room.

Instead of screaming, they talked to one another.

And that night, while Josh counted the stars out of his bedroom window, Tyler slept in the other bed. 

* * *

 

“Hey Tyler?” Josh asked at twelve am. 

At first there was the shuffling of sheets, followed by a comet in the sky. “Yeah, Josh?”

“Do you think...we’ll get out of here alive?” 

There was silence, and Josh thought he had joined the stars he’d held on his fingers in the form of numbers. 

“I don’t know,” Tyler said. 

“What does Blurryface think?” Josh asked, learning from experience to not neglect the split personality. 

He imagined Tyler frowning that cute little pout, listening to his thoughts speak to him in his head. 

“He says...he hopes you live.”

“What do you think?”

_Silence._

“I think…”

_Silence_. 

“I’d like you to live too.”

_Silence_. 

“Why?” 

_Silence_. 

“You don’t hurt me.”

Silence. 

“Why would I?”

_Silence_. 

“Because I’m bad.”

“And I’m mad.”

Tyler laughed. 

And so Josh fell in love that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill upload the next chapter whenever i get it done! the fanfic is near 100 kudos so im done with kudos goals!  
> thanks for reading!  
> if you want, leave a comment! it can be feedback, or whatever you want!!!  
> have a great day!!!!


	6. Before You Start Your Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler and Blurryface cope with the emotions, from the morning to the night.  
> And Josh copes with his urges, and gives into the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that being said, here's the trigger warnings for this chapter!!!
> 
> TRIGGERS:  
> self harm  
> schizophrenia  
> suicide

When Tyler woke up listening to soft snoring from across his room, he felt his heart stutter in fear at the unfamiliar sound. His fingers tightened around his blanket, preparing for the snoring to stop and for heavy footsteps to step towards his body. He stiffened, trying to act as though he were asleep so the belt wouldn’t hit his skin, yet the snoring didn’t stop and the footsteps didn’t get closer. Instead, there was incoherent words murmured as the body owning the snores shifted. 

Tyler slowly and quietly sat up in his bed, trying to ignore the butterflies flitting around in his chest. There was a soft, blue glow illuminating the room as he looked around, eyes adjusting to the dark and the light. He realized he was still in Tree Pine, and not in his old room that stunk of blood and had stains on the floor. Instead, he remembered that he was in Hall 3, which was becoming more and more occupied as it became the overflow area. He wasn’t an overflow patient though. He belonged in Hall 3, along with…

_ Josh!  _ Both Tyler and Blurryface thought. Blurryface felt want and need encircle its throat, making it difficult for it to breathe. Yet Tyler felt heat in his cheeks, eyes wide and mouth somewhat ajar. For once in both Tyler and Blurryface’s existence, they both enjoyed someone. Usually, Tyler loved someone and Blurryface hated them. Other times, Tyler hated someone and Blurryface loved them. There’d been no winning.

Until now. 

Quietly, Tyler got to his feet, bare skin recoiling from how cold the floor and air was compared to his warm bed and blankets. He hissed quietly, looking over at Josh to see if he was awake. The red hair was wild and stuck up from under the blanket, and, based on the snoring, he was still asleep. Tyler sighed in relief before finally standing up, rubbing at his arms to try and warm up. 

**We should touch his hair,** Blurryface said, and Tyler frowned to himself. 

_ Why?  _ Tyler thought, and Blurryface shrugged internally...if he even had a body. 

**It’s red, like our wrists. It’s nice,** Blurryface replied, and Tyler shook his head, walking into the bathroom as he took a leak. Sometimes, Tyler hated Blurryface because of his consistent, constant comments, and sometimes he loved Blurryface because Blurryface always knew what to do. When Tyler needed to paint on the walls and write his thoughts, Blurryface knew what to use. When Tyler looked at Josh and felt his heart stop, Blurrryface knew what to do.

But at the same time, Blurryface never knew what to do. 

So Tyler was pulled right and left by his brain and his thoughts day after day. 

When he turned on the faucet to wash his hands, Josh stirred and groaned slightly. Tyler stopped washing his hands, turning around to look at the man. He was definitely awake now as he yawned loudly, a cute noise that made Tyler quickly look back down at his hands and continue rinsing them. 

“Mornin’,” Josh yawned as he stood up. Tyler turned around to look at Josh, who was rubbing at his messy hair with tired eyes. 

**Kiss him.**

Tyler’s face had never been redder than then, and he was thankful to every God in existence for the dim lighting. If it weren’t for the darkness, Josh would’ve seen his beet red face, and Tyler would have died right then and there. Dying wouldn’t be the worst part, but the embarrassment sure as hell would be. 

Shaking his head, Tyler waved at Josh. Josh didn’t seem to notice as he scratched his belly, going into the shared bathroom to pee. “How’d you sleep, Bean?” Josh asked groggily, and Tyler frowned in confusion. 

“Bean?” He asked, and Josh laughed lightly. 

“Yeah, it’s your new nickname,” he told Tyler, and Tyler rolled his eyes, taking out his safety toothbrush as he began to brush his teeth. Josh flushed the toilet and came out to clean his hands. He flicked on the light, and the two could see each other much better than before. Without a shower, Josh looked much more tired, but at the same time he looked much more cute. Tyler desperately hoped Josh couldn’t see him blushing. 

“That’s a weird nickname,” he replied, and Josh shrugged with a grin on his face. 

“Well, we’re kinda roommates and I thought it’d be weird if we  _ didn’t  _ have nicknames for each other,” he said, and Tyler nodded, eyebrows furrowed as he scrubbed at his teeth. Neither of them said anything as Tyler thought, and Josh suspected that whatever Tyler was going to say next would be serious. 

Instead, Tyler spit out his toothpaste and said, “Okay, Jish.”

“Jish?”

Tyler shrugged. “Like fish.”

“Why ‘fish’?”

“Because you’re swimming in dark water, and it keeps getting murkier and murkier until you can’t see.”

Josh nodded, expecting the in depth comment. “Well, I guess it’s good I took swimming classes.”

Tyler may not have laughed, but he didn’t not laugh that morning. 

 

For the first few days of both Tyler and Josh’s admission into Hall 3, they weren’t allowed out of the hall for activities or meals. By doing this, they would be able to calculate both their ability to change and see if they were able to handle just being by themselves, nonetheless with people. 

Having Josh around made things easier, however. Around the boy, Blurryface calmed down slightly, and the only comments it made were comments of intimacy. There was no doubt that by lunch Josh had noticed how red Tyler’s cheeks had become due to Blurryface’s comments, but if he did notice then he didn’t say anything. 

Josh and Tyler always had something to talk about, and when it settled on music they both learned they knew how to play at least one instrument. Josh, Tyler learned, could play the drums, which was exciting for Tyler because that meant (maybe?) they could play together. When Josh asked Tyler what he played, he was surprised at how many instruments he could play, and was even more excited when he learned that Tyler could sing and rap. He didn’t sing for Josh then, but they both made plans to write a few songs after Josh’s therapy session. 

Inside Hall 3, Tyler and Josh wrote all day. They each had their own individual care providers who joked and laughed with one another. They were both guys, and Tyler’s was named Joe, who played the guitar which led to both him and Tyler bonding over the instrument. Josh’s care provider was a guy named Andy who played drums and looked like a dad version of John Cena. The two often tapped rhythms of the tables with pencils and frequently had drum offs. It was entertaining. 

Once Josh was whisked away by his doctor for therapy, Tyler simply remained with Joe, who looked as though he didn’t know what to do or what to say. After a few moments of silence where Tyler just colored in his paper with a black crayon, Joe stood up. “You wanna play the guitar?” He asked, and Tyler furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He was told there were no instruments people could play, yet when Joe beeped him out of Hall 3 and led him into a soundproof room with a piano and a range of other instruments, he was proven wrong.

For once ever since his admittance into Tree Pine, Tyler felt freedom fluttering around in his chest as he sat down on the bench in front of the piano. He tested a few keys, before playing a soft melody. Joe sat on one of the chairs in the room, silently watching Tyler play. After a few minutes of simply playing, Tyler opened his mouth, belting out hoarse and croaky words. 

“Open the slits in your face, and start your day,” he sang.

 

When Josh came back into Hall 3, his eyes were dark and his shoulders slumped. He was muttering angrily, storming right past Tyler without even a second glance. Both Joe and Tyler exchanged looks, and Andy walked in a few steps behind Josh. When he saw the looks on both of the guy’s faces, he sighed. “Therapy meeting went bad,” he explained. 

Worry bubbled in Tyler’s chest, and when the two care providers began to talk he stood up and shrank back to his and Josh’s room quietly. When he walked in, he noticed that the shower was on and steam was filling the room. Tyler frowned, unsure of what to do. 

“Josh?” He called out quietly, yet there was no reply. He chewed on his lips for a few seconds before playing with his fingers, pacing around the room to cope with his anxiety. Blurryface was peaking up at Tyler’s anxiety and Josh’s silence, pushing forward more and more in Tyler’s mind. Tyler bit down on his lip and grabbed at his head as Blurryface kept pushing and pushing, trying to take control of Tyler. He rarely let Blurryface take control unless he wanted to die, and with Josh on the other side of the curtain he didn’t feel like traumatizing him further. 

_ No! We can’t!!!  _

**He is dying. Can you not see how the steam encircles a dead body? He’s becoming the tiles and the tiles are becoming him, one and red and dead.**

_ He can’t.  _

Tyler’s heart was in his throat as he struggled to his feet, head throbbing from Blurryface’s yelling and protests. They were both scared as they approached the shower, hand outstretched as it wavered and shook. He knew he’d be breaking rules, and could get in big trouble for what this looked like. His care providers, who were no doubt outside the door, would assume Tyler was trying to fuck Josh, but Tyler wasn’t. He wanted to see if Blurryface was right, if Josh was dead. 

_ He can’t be the bones under his skin and the blood in his left eye.  _

Tyler pulled back the curtain. 

**You’re in love, aren’t you?**

**With those eyes that squint as though you were the light.**

**With those lips that grin and chew food too loudly and messily.**

**With those fingers who play a beat his heart forgot.**

**You’re in love, aren’t you?**

 

“Josh,” Tyler breathed. 

**You’re in love.**

“Josh.”

 

**We’re in love.**

 

Tyler screamed until he could no longer sing, and his skin was red from trying to tape Josh’s wrists together. But he was no doctor. He was no architect. And those wrists were the ruins of the colosseum; holding beauty and danger but now empty for people to wander. 

And he couldn’t deny it as he held a dying boy in his hands.

Tyler was in love. 

And the blade was their enemy, their weapon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!  
> PLEASE leave kudos!!!  
> PLEASE leave a comment!! even if it's a little dumb message or like legit criticism then go ahead!!! i love all comments and feedback!!! it makes me soooo happy!!!  
> thank you for reading!!!  
> have a great day or nightt!


	7. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh wakes up, and Tyler sings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello~~~!!!  
> i dont know when i'll update next, because there's a lot of stuff going on in my personal life which is super stressful so i have no idea when i'll be able to pump out the next update. so i hope this one satisfies until then!!!  
> triggers for this chapter:  
> suicide attempt  
> schizophrenia  
> cutting thoughts ? ?? ?  
> i hope you enjoy!!!

When Josh woke up in the hospital for what felt like his millionth time, he decided he was done. He decided that waking up and being alive after being so close to death was not his thing, and that it’d happened too many times. Despite the nurse sitting in his doorway and watching him with narrowed, sharp eyes, he’d managed to rip his I.V out of his veins, not minding the blood staining both his gown and the sheets. The nurse didn’t notice, somehow, and once she quickly turned away to answer a question, Josh jumped to his feet, a monitor crashing to the ground behind him. The nurse and whomever she was answered to looked at him in shock as he picked up the nearest object and hurled it at the window.

Yet the hospital wasn’t as dumb as he’d wished, and the window did not break. Josh felt tears prick his eyes as he picked it back up, going to throw it again when hands wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him back. “No!” He cried, trying to push away the nurses. They didn’t reply nor did they comply as they held him down. Josh eventually stopped resisting, understanding there was no possibility in fighting back, in opposing them and succeeding in his (literal) suicide mission.

“No,” he croaked, sinking into the hands and the ground as they stuck pills into his mouth followed by water. He tried to spit out the water yet they covered his mouth, and Josh understood there was no way he could end his life. There was no possibility in dying, and surviving sounded so hard, sounded so difficult.

So Josh swallowed his pills, and, bleeding, he fell asleep.

* * *

 

Tyler didn’t like being alone, not after Blurryface had begun to sing and scream all day until his head creaked and moaned as though he were a tree. But at the same time, he didn’t like to be around all the corpses who were still talking and breathing even though they weren’t living. He didn’t like the voices in his head, yet he didn’t like the voices telling him who he was when he was just a lonely, sad little boy.

Once Josh had tried to drown himself in the shower’s ankle water with a blade to his hand and mouth shut in a silent prayer of death, Tyler hadn’t been completely left alone. They expected Blurryface to become the war front in his mind and to rip the wallpaper off with broken and stubby fingernails busy picking apart his sanity, or what remained of it. His door had to be held open a few inches, with staff sitting outside watching him every moment. Even when he had to take a leak, his care provider would stand in the room. Whatever purpose that served Tyler didn’t know.

His doctors and nurses and care providers were all expecting him to snap, to destroy the world and every aspect of himself in it. They even increased his anxiety medication after the incident, which Blurryface insisted didn’t help at all, and that Tyler should just spit it in the faucet like every other pill. Yet after taking a few, the hot ball of coiled worry and excitement unwound in his chest, and it felt as though he could somewhat breathe again.

His care provider, Joe, would arrive at 3:30 every day when whoever else was his care provider switched out. Whenever Joe arrived, he would nod towards the doors, and they would go into what they now called the “music room”. Tyler wanted to rename it since the name wasn’t too original, yet he and Blurryface both hadn’t settled for a new name yet. Whenever they got into the room, Joe would ask him about any new songs and then sit down and simply listen.

Tyler had quickly tuned the old guitar Tree Pine had, and gotten used to their piano. It hadn’t taken long for him to start writing songs, especially after Josh’s suicide attempt. Instead of hurting himself and giving into Blurryface’s bad temptations and shrill screams, Tyler had instead focused on music and his writing, like Joe suggested. And when they were in the music room is when Tyler felt Blurryface disappear into the keys and notes he was playing, into the words he was singing. And in those moments, it felt almost as though he had jumped into a lake with the sun beating on his back and roasting his skin. It was cold, crisp and familiar yet forgotten.

It was freedom.

Yet once the music lifted and he was brought back to his ( **and Josh’s,** Blurryface said) room, Blurryface was back and twisting his own chords around and around his head. Joe quickly learned to keep Tyler’s nails short after two nights of Tyler scratching as his head, peeling off hair and skin as though it were a scab. His doctors and nurses had tried to start him on new anti-psychotics, yet every time the pill touched his mouth he spit it right back out down the toilet and far away from the boy sitting on the tile of a mental hospital bathroom.

The first three days without Josh were strange. It began to smell more and more like Tyler’s greasy and dirty skin, and taking a shower was without question. Every time the loud hiss of the water beginning to paint the tiles and build up near his toes and feet, Tyler locked up, not responding as he simply stared. Whether or not it was his natural defense mechanism in trying to keep Blurryface from assuming control was not known. What was known was that after a few minutes, he would start fighting whoever was nearby and he would try to escape Hall 3. The first time this happened, the nurses had tried to restrain him without much success. It’d taken a shot to the butt to stop him, and one day later, they tried a shower again.

This time, Joe had taken him to the music room, where his voice was hoarse and the keys he played wavered in the air. It wasn’t rocket science to figure that after stumbling upon Josh nearly dead in the shower was traumatizing. The only hygiene care in which Tyler could calmly receive was a warm shower, and even then even the smallest touch of cold water or reminder of the event would set him off.

On days four and five, Tyler wrote five songs. Three were about the voices in his head and how they made him play the E key three times before he could sing along to the song. One was about how the sky kept crying and even when Tyler tried to cheer it up by showing all the flowers and green grass, the sky insisted on dying and that’s why they were cursed with sun instead. The final one was about skeleton boy, and when Tyler would be digging the hole for the red head boy who was dead.

On day six, when his doctors were sure they could finally mention Josh without a nervous breakdown from Tyler, they brought Tyler into a room and told him Josh was alive. Tyler had simply frowned, playing with his fingers and mimicking a song in his head.

“So the dirt under my nails was just to make sure his life could grow, and the rain died just so Josh could be alive?” He asked, and his doctors nodded, and for the first time in six days, Tyler smiled.

He wrote a new song that night, and Joe noticed it was all about Josh. Josh was in the words, in the chords, in the keys, and, most importantly, Tyler’s heart and mind.

* * *

 

When Josh returned to Tree Pine, they put him in the room next to Tyler’s. The first thing Josh had requested was to see the boy, yet the staff informed him that he needed to both focus on himself and that Tyler was in the music room. So Josh sat on the long desk in his now empty room, and wrote.

He wrote of how the walls were peeling with the unspoken words between him and Tyler, of how the trees outside his window tried to grab him and put a rope around his neck. Josh wrote of how life continued to taunt him with what he couldn’t have; death, and Tyler.

It was around dinner when Josh finally saw Tyler. The boy had dark circles under his eyes as he walked back into Hall 3 with sheets held in his hands, fingers tight around the papers in such a way Josh was sure the universe was trying to pull him back into its grasp. Joe first saw Josh, and when he did, he smiled brightly at Josh. Tyler, at first, didn’t notice as he was staring at the ground, but once he looked up and saw Josh’s dangerously wild, red hair, his eyes lit up.

“Josh!” He shouted, and, looking at the pure expression of joy on that otherwise deceased face, Josh didn’t mind being alive as much as before. Tyler quickly rushed over to him, scrawny body holding a surprising amount of speed. He slid into the chair next to Josh, eyes bright and smile stretching his face.

Josh grinned back at him, unsure of what to say or what to do. So he said the only thing he could say. “Hey Tyler, wanna make a band?”

Tyler’s fingers twitched, almost as though he were playing the familiar keys of the piano to the tune of Josh’s breath. “Okay.”

“What should we be called?”

Tyler furrowed his eyebrows, sitting back and crossing his arms. “I dunno.”

Josh shrugged in response. “Let’s think about it.”

* * *

 

That night, when the lights had gone out and Tyler was curled up in his bed trying to tame Blurryface and the itch on his wrist, there was a knock on his wall. At first Tyler assumed it was another hallucination, yet after a soft “Tyler?” Was heard through the wall he knew it was real.

Unsure of what to do, Tyler sat there for a few minutes, listening to his shallow breathing and soft voices outside of his door. Blurryface was silent as well, waiting in suspended silence and curiosity. After a few minutes, there was another knock, and Tyler shifted on his bed.

“Josh?” Tyler asked, and there was a faint sigh from the other side of the wall.

“Jesus, thank God it’s you. I thought maybe I got the wrong wall and was talking to some other person,” Josh laughed, and Tyler smiled to himself.

“Don’t worry. It’s me.”

“Good, good…”

“Whaddya need?”

“I need to know something.”

“Okay…”

“If... If I died...would you miss me?”

“Yeah.”

“R-realy?”

“Yeah.”

…

“I’d miss you too, Tyler.”

…

“Thanks.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!  
> PLEASE leave kudos!  
> PLEASE leave a comment; have it be a little comment or feedback, idc!!!  
> thanks !!!  
> have a great day or night!!!


	8. The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys bond, and we learn new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeeyyyyy!!!! sorry for the lack of an update!!! i'm on spring break so i've been taking some time to myself to just play video games and listen to twenty one pilots and recover from stupid school and all the drama going on. again, idk when the next update will be out because i kinda just wrote this in a writing rush in an hour, so once i get another writing rush or won't be stressed over shit going on is when the next update will come out !  
> but i hope this next back story and interactions between josh and tyler suffice!!!  
> TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER:  
> bullying  
> abuse  
> sexual abuse  
> domestic violence  
> homophobia  
> self harm  
> suicide?  
> schizophrenia
> 
> if none of that upsets you, then HAVE FUN READING~!!!

****

“I have a question for you,” Tyler asked one morning, sun barely above the horizon in the dim windows which served as their own view of a world they were no longer a part of. The only lights that illuminated Tyler’s disinterested face were the ceiling ones, which were harsh and unforgiving. Josh could see his flaws under the lights, but he didn’t really mind. The acne scars just made him more cute. 

“Yeah?” He replied, sticking some more of Tree Pine’s shitastic food into his mouth. For morning, they had gotten remotely lucky. There was delicious coffee cake and the daily oatmeal, which Josh thanked God for. He was extremely lucky in that he didn’t mind the oatmeal, or else he would be like Tyler; all skin and bones. He didn’t think Tyler’s weight was unhealthy, but he kept losing and losing it whenever they took daily vitals. Josh and Tyler’s doctors were somewhat concerned, but Josh was less concerned than his therapist. He understood the food here sucked ass.

Pete had always joked he’d walked in with just depression, and left with some form of an eating disorder. Patrick would always look uncomfortable, having one himself, but Pete always reminded him he was just trying to make light of the situation. And personally, Josh couldn’t blame him. 

Mental hospitals sucked. 

Tyler chewed on a piece of pineapple for a moment before continuing. “Why do you cut?” He asked nonchalantly, and Josh wasn’t as surprised as he should’ve been. He’d expected the question eventually from Tyler. They were pretty damn close now despite Tree Pine’s “focus on yourself” policies. Josh sure as hell didn’t need Tyler to survive, but having Tyler made surviving just a little bit easier. 

Josh cut up another piece of bread and began to chew on it in thought, eyes squinted up at the windows. Sometimes, if you were awake enough, you could watch the sun rise, and that morning, which Tyler’s question and Tree Pine’s delicious coffee cake, he felt plenty awake. In fact, he felt almost jittery. Like he needed to grab his drumsticks and crack them on Tree Pine’s set as Tyler poured his demons into his words and they dispelled all of their negative energy. 

After a few silent moments, Josh simply shrugged. “I dunno… It just...feels nice, ya know?” He lamely said, and Tyler looked at him with his “really, bitch?” face, the one that made Josh laugh for a few seconds. Josh knew Tyler provided that expression in both honest annoyance at his response and to lighten to atmosphere. Self harm wasn’t exactly the brightest topic, and having it in a mental hospital made it even less bright. 

“I do. But there’s always more to it, ya know? There’s always...some sad backstory and some sad words and a skeleton crying even though it lacks the eyes to do so,” Tyler insisted, dropping his fork as he finished up his small fruit plate. The look in his eyes were intense and persistent, wanting to dig into the tight crooks and nannies of Josh’s cracking skeleton. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Josh couldn’t help but think that Tyler was cute with his ruffled hair and wide eyes. 

Josh took a drink of his orange juice, thinking back to his story. He hadn’t really thought of his past, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t exactly motivating and happy, which was expected. “Well,” he began. “It’s not a sob story, or anything. Not like...my dad beat me every night and my mom drank until she beat my dad. My family...they’re fine. My sister, Abigail, is amazing. She’s smart and funny, and Ashley is too. My brother, Jordan, is super chill and we used to play the old Mario Kart together,” Josh laughed, and Tyler smiled at that too. But they both knew where the story was going. 

“Well...  I always knew from when I was young I didn’t really...like girls. And I was freaked out by it, ya know? Being... _ gay  _ wasn’t exactly as acceptable as it is now. All the kids at school would talk about how pretty girls were and I’d just kinda go along with it. Until... I met this one kid. I got this stupid crush on him, and I told him over some chat website and he took screenshots and told everyone at school,” Josh told Tyler, chewing on his lip as he played with the crumbs of his coffee cake. “Ya know all those dumb anti-bullying videos they show kids? Yeah, well, that shit is fake. That’s what they want you think bullying is, cause no one ever fucking does that shit?” Josh angrily hissed, body stiff and tense from his rage. “The real shit is all of your friends slowly leaving you because they’re scared you’re gonna suck them off when they sleep. The real shit is hearing your name and being called a fag, and all the girls and boys giving you dirty looks. No one shoves you into a locker, they just talk about you and ruin your name.”

“And then the next thing you know, you’re coming home and your parents hear the rumors, they beg you it’s not true. So you try to get a girl because lord forbid you like a guy. And I get a girl, finally, and all she wants is sex. She wants me everyday, every minute, even if I didn’t feel like it. She would hit me, and guilt trip me. So you have this beautiful relationship to your parents because they don’t want you to date the cute guy in band class, but the manipulative bitch who ruins not your name, but your head.”

“And so you only see yourself as this fag, as this sex slave, and you begin to hate yourself because hatred to yourself is all you see, all your feel. Everyone hates you, everyone’s afraid of you, everyone treats you differently because you’re gay, and then you’re not. And if you say you’re gay and then you’re “not”, it gets worse. They say you want attention, to make up your mind, cuz also forbid being bisexual.”

“You’re this awful person inside and out, this  _ fake _ person, this  _ gay  _ person. And then you hate yourself, and you just want it all to stop. So you play with the blade to prepare for the day where you’ll go to take a bath, take a deep breath and submerge your blade right in deep into your legs, into your wrists.  _ Anywhere  _ so it’ll stop. You’ll stop being gay, you’ll stop being fake, you’ll stop being hit. And it becomes an addiction, a way to push all your feelings out from the cuts in the form of your own blood.”

Josh stopped, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Tyler was simply watching him with wide eyes, and when Josh stopped to stare at him he noticed the sun had begun to rise, casting a brilliant array of colors behind Tyler. There as this mash of red and orange and yellow and pink mixed behind him, hitting his edges and forgetting his body. Yet under that sun, Tyler looked like he had just descended from heaven, or God, or whatever you believe in. He simply looked holy, like antidepressants mixed in with his drumsticks and his fingers hitting the keys and chords and everything simply elevated and alive.

“And now…”

“Now?” Tyler asked, voice cracking at the end. 

Josh shrugged, eating another piece of coffee cake. “Now I’m here.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Tyler wondered. 

Josh swallowed, narrowing his eyes as he frowned in thought. “Hearing your knocks on my wall at night...I think that’s God’s way of saying, ‘You found a saint in Hell. Keep him.’” 

Tyler laughed, shaking his head as he sipped on milk. Josh grinned at the sound, continuing to eat. 

And so they sat with one another; the skeleton boy, and the outcast’s boy. 

* * *

Josh woke up at twelve am with a knock behind his head. There was harsh breathing barely audible due to the wall, but Josh knew Tyler’s hyperventilation better than anyone else. It was always quiet, subdued so that no one would hear or care. 

“Tyler?” Josh sleepily called out, looking up from the pillow he had been holding against him. There was no reply, and so Josh rubbed at his eyes, yawning as he sat up. “Tyler, buddy...You okay?” 

There was a sharp inhale, and the sound of someone snapping their fingers. “Blurryface...he won’t stop. He keeps spinning and scratching and planting flowers in my mind. They’re bright and pretty and make it easier to breathe cuz...you know...plants make oxygen?” Tyler said, almost asking Josh about plants. Josh somewhat snickered, yet knew not to laugh as it would be disrespectful to Tyler in his moment of vulnerability. 

“What’s wrong with that?” Josh asked, and he imagined Tyler shrugging and shaking his head sporadically. 

“I… He has these crayons and he’s drawing the sun and the stars and the moon and he tells me he’s the stars; the background holding too much and immensely dangerous and vivid. He says you’re the sun and I’m the Earth, spinning around you and eventually going to be swallowed whole by you,” Tyler hissed, and Josh furrowed his eyebrows. 

“That’s...weird,” Josh said, and Tyler laughed his little breathless laugh and Josh couldn’t stop his heart from fluttering wildly in his chest. These quiet moments where the flashlight shined on them every fifteen minutes and where their knuckles became sore from knocking always were like those dumb butterflies you got in your stomach when you saw your crush. Except these butterflies were mutated and giant and threatened to eat Josh whole. 

But that was besides the point. 

“Yeah...but there’s something weirder,” Tyler said, and Josh laughed quietly. 

“ _ Weirder?” _ He joked. 

“Yeah.”

“Okay...shoot.”

“The whole...being swallowed by your light and heat and just... _ you?” _

_ “ _ Yeah…?”

“I...I wouldn’t mind it.”

“But...you would die.”

“Won’t we all?”

Josh snickered, getting comfy in his bed again. “Goodnight, Tyler,” he yawned, closing his eyes. He knew Tyler would not sleep, and would instead sing until his voice became raw or his care provider told him to go to sleep. Instead of singing, however, Tyler spoke. 

“I’m just a skeleton and you’re just the strings on my guitar, but you’re not rusting and you’re not breaking, so my skin won’t get raw and I can play, play, play. And, Josh?”

“Yeah?”

** “You’re my favorite song.”  **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay first of all, i want to thank EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU who has commented, subscribed ( i didnt even know that was a thing LMAO), bookmarked or given kudos!!! your support literally means EVERYTHING to me! every kudos, comment, bookmark, or subscription gives me this wild fluttering feeling in my chest and this warmth in my stomach and this big grin on my face!!! you guys are the REASON why i'm writing this, along with that i love the boys and shit!!!  
> thank you SOOOO much for reading!!!  
> have an AMAZING day or night!!!!


	9. Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Josh's one month anniversary, and Tyler's eleventh.   
> One's significant, while the other is just as.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys !!! spring break is over :(((( so expect more updates  
> or maybe not cuz a new dlc is being released for fallout 4 tomorrow and soon survival mode is being released lmAO  
> either way, here's the next chapter, and it's very progressive in the story!!! instead of being character development, it's both that and plot development.  
> i hope u enjoy!!!  
> TRIGGERS:  
> schizophrenia  
> self harm mention  
> family troubles
> 
> thank you, and enjoy!!!

On day eleven of Tyler’s admittance, it was Josh’s one month anniversary of being in Tree Pine. The day had begun like any other day; there were three knocks on Tyler’s door at roughly eight in the morning, followed by a soft, “Time to wake up!”. Tyler slowly stood up, grabbed his marker and marked another tally on his wall. He then took a leak and stared at himself in the mirror. 

Without razors, he had a scruffy face and his hair had become a tad bit longer than before. And under the harsh lighting of the bathroom lights, he looked pale and tired. When you looked close into his eyes, however, you could see a new kind of light playing with his features. Blurryface hated it. The light was a threat to his constant darkness, to his constant shadow. It lit things up in which he wouldn’t never seen; the way the water felt when it dripped across his skin, the smell of the shitty oatmeal he always ate in the morning, and how the piano keys had the slightest bit of dust coating its edges as Tyler played it. 

The light was a threat. 

And so on Tyler’s eleventh day, Blurryface declared war upon the light, and instead of simply waking up Tyler continued to sleep. He ignored the constant knocks and the constant words. He ignored the want to get up and see Josh, wish him good luck for his thirtieth, or thirty first, day here at Tree Pine. He dug his pillow over his head and simply swam in his dreams and drowned in his thoughts. 

It was around ten in the morning when his doctor finally walked in and asked him questions about his wellbeing. Blurryface opted to take control and handle the situation himself. 

“Hello, Tyler,” his doctor greeted, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Tyler, or Blurryface, squinted up at him from his bed. His doctor gave a tight smile, the kind that was forced and completely ingenuine. 

“You reek of hospital and drag the bed behind you. Unhook the chains and rap them around my head instead,” Blurryface told the doctor. 

“Excuse me?”

“Destroy the world and rip the tiles out. Give me the concrete and I’ll take these thoughts and pave them into the wall. Call it art and this is my hal.”

* * *

Needless to say, Tyler’s residence at Tree Pine would continue.

* * *

 

Josh’s day was sucking total and complete ass. He’d woken up all alone with no knocks from Tyler, and no sound of his thoughts and shaky words. Then, he’d eaten his shitty breakfast all alone. They’d cooked sausage and just the smell made Josh wanna vomit, and nearly did make him. However, he’d had to swallow it down because then everyone at Tree Pine would think he was purging. 

Tyler had never come out of his room, even after continuous and constant knocks at his door. His care provider was becoming concerned after thirty minutes had passed, and Tyler’s absence had now become abnormal. Ever since coming to Hall 3, Tyler had kept to a routine, and now that he was breaking it, it meant something was different. It meant that something had changed.

And if there was anything both Josh and Tyler hated, it was change. 

Tyler’s absence added to his increasingly shitty day. The water in his shower had been cold, he’d stubbed his toe, gotten his favorite shirt wet after falling on it from slipping when he’d stubbed his toe, and he had a family meeting at eleven. He hadn’t seen or talked to his parents after he’d dug just a little bit too deep and taken pills to try and sleep. Of course, his parents had tried to visit and talk to him, yet he wouldn’t. 

Josh couldn’t face the parents he had failed, he had disappointed. He was gay, and that meant he was a fuck up. He would never have those cute little kids with his cheeks and his wife’s eyes. To his parents, he was a failure. And he couldn’t dare look into the eyes that called him son when he was anything but. 

In all honesty, Josh didn’t move from his room after his shower. He’d simply sat down on his bed and fallen back, resting his arms over his face. His thoughts were loud and angry, frantic and full of the words he would never say. They were bothered by how yellow the fucking walls were, how bright it was outside, how he was stuck in a _ mental hospital.  _ They were disturbed by the silence behind the wall. It protruded out from underneath him, stabbing him in all the dangerous places and with alarming accuracy. 

Josh’s one month anniversary was full of jumpy impulses and frantic heartbeats. He didn’t dare put on a shirt because he knew he’d sweat right through it. He didn’t dress up or do his hair like he usually would because he knew when he walked out there would be an empty chair where Tyler should be sitting. The drumsticks he put in his hand in the quiet music room felt too raw and he got a splinter in the part of the song where Tyler should be singing. 

Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

But when was anything ever right? 

* * *

 

The knock on the music room was too loud and echoed too many times in Josh’s ringing ears. He’d kept playing as his therapist walked in with furrowed eyebrows and a thick notebook in her arms. The song was one he and Tyler had written together one night when the snow was thick and blankets to warm them had been sparse. The song reflected the numbness in both their feet and the rubbing at their arms to try and retain heat. 

It reflected the desperation Josh felt rubbing together in his chest as he put the drumsticks aside, stopping the song. 

“That was a nice song. What was it called?” His therapist asked, and Josh shrugged.

“I dunno. We haven’t named it yet,” Josh told her, and she frowned in confusion.

“ _ We _ ?” She asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah...Tyler and me… We haven’t named it yet,” Josh explained, and she hummed in response, shifting her position in front of the open doorway. 

“Your doctors and I both agree that music is very healthy for you, so we came up with an idea...to help you in your family meeting?” His therapist began, and she immediately noticed Josh stiffening intensely at the mention of his family meeting. He began to chew on his lips at the mention, shaking his leg from the tangled cord of anxiety knotting in his chest. 

“Yeah???” He pressed, and she smiled the tight lip smile both he and Tyler loathed. 

“We were wondering if you’d like to play music, and have your family listen,” she told him, and Josh sat and thought. 

The air felt more lonely than the drumsticks in his hands, even if they were splintering and hurting his hands. It was better than the isolation he felt as he sat; exposed to the eyes that shaped what he had become. So he nodded, picking up the drumsticks in his hands as he thought of what song to play. 

Without Tyler, however, playing and performing felt like ripping a canvas you had spent hours painting and working on. It felt like a hole; incomplete and ugly in the art you’d put your sweat and blood in. The words that fell to his mouth felt hollow and worthless in his voice. The drums felt empty and shallow when his drumstick made contact with them.

Without Tyler, his music was wrong. 

It wasn’t real. 

So he stood up, and his care provider followed with inquisitive eyes. 

“Do you need a few minutes before the meeting, Josh?” She asked, and he nodded, unsure of what to say. Would they let Tyler sing beside him, or would they reject him? For this to work, he needed to make music. He needed to perform and present the man he’d become. Within the month of his residence, Josh hadn’t become someone new. Instead, he’d shaped his body, his personality. He was still Josh, yet the hands in which he used and the feet he walked with had new ways of doing so. 

The doors that opened to the cold title and too bright lights was loud as he walked towards the living area of the Hall. There was quiet talking, and the soft scratch of pencil against paper. The scratch confirmed Josh’s hopes; Tyler was awake, and he was out and about. His abnormal absence made fear stretch his chest, however, and Josh expected the worst as he rounded the corner.

Tyler was sitting facing the hallway, and so he saw Josh when he entered. The shadows under his eyes lightened slightly as his eyes brightened at the sight of the red haired man, and a small smile played with his features. “Josh,” he said, and Josh grinned back, eyes crinkling. 

“Hey...you wanna play?” He asked Tyler, pointing towards the door casually. 

Tyler took a few minutes to observe his features, careful and calculating intensely. “My voice can’t project the weight in which it seeks,” he told Josh, and Josh shrugged in response.

“Yet it can reach the height of the peak,” he responded, and Tyler grinned. 

“Okay.”

* * *

 

When his therapist entered the music room, Josh didn’t look at her, or the people he knew would be following close by. Instead, he kept his head down, eyes closed as he simply breathed and waited for the first note from Tyler to play. 

His therapist must’ve been surprised to see Tyler in the room, especially considering this was a private meeting. Yet neither of them cared. Playing music was the one of the only ways they knew how to cope with the voices in their head and the voices around them. And what better way to approach what Josh once had with what he now possessed; the drumsticks in his hands, and the voice and chords being played behind him. 

The first chord that sounded loudly from Tyler’s fingers on the piano echoed throughout the quiet room. It sounded holy and Josh finally looked up towards his family, summoning the courage to do so. His dad was looking at him with furrowed eyebrows and downturned lips, while his mom was clutching her purse to her lap and biting back tears. His brother was the only sibling to visit, and he was crossing his arms across his chest, unreadable. 

His heart thudded in his chest loudly as he twisted his drumsticks in his hands, trying to ignore how emotionally intense this really was. Here he was; finally facing his parents after a month in a mental hospital. And here Tyler sat beside him; fingers on the piano as he took his schizophrenia and morphed it into his song. 

_ “I’m a goner…” _

* * *

 

Josh didn’t talk much to Tyler after his meeting. Instead, he only returned to Hall 3 for meals and spent the rest of the day in the music room. And so Tyler was left to the paint given to him and the walls in his room. He was well aware that painting on the walls would get him into deep shit, but how much deeper could he get into the pile of shit of his life? 

By the time Josh’s door opened and shut, the bathroom’s walls were black and smothered with white dots for the stars of Tyler’s murdered thoughts. Blurryface sometimes took control during the painting and dipped his hand in red paint, smearing it on the walls with his marks. 

Yet when Josh’s door opened and closed, Tyler stopped and sat on his bathroom floor for a few moments, listening for his voice. When there was just silence for a few, long moments he got to his shaky feet, hands black from just not his mind, but his sins as well. 

“Josh?” He called, and there was no response.

Tyler got onto his bed, slowly walking on his knees towards the wall. He hadn’t touched this wall yet, but as he knocked on the wall there were a few paint marks. Again, these was no reply, and so Tyler began to knock more and harder. “Josh? Josh? Did the sea at you whole, or did it drown you in its lies?” He called, and finally there was noise. 

“Tyler?” It was quiet and barely there, but what mattered is that it was  _ there _ . 

“Josh!” 

“Tyler…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going home.”

Tyler stopped. 

“Wh...what?”

“I’m going home in one week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u guys enjoyed this chapter, PLEASE:  
> leave KUDOS!  
> leave a COMMENT, even if it's critique, feedback or just a lil comment! just dont be mean. im just a smol bean.  
> THANK YOU!!!  
> HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!


	10. Handprint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler makes his print upon Tree Pine, and Josh finds himself thinking of the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello~~~!!! i hope u guys enjoy this update. i really loved writing this and even got my own feels from this aha.  
> i do wanna stress to everyone who has a mental illness this:  
> don't get into a relationship if you're not able to handle yourself, or you rely on the other person like they're your lifeline. that's super unhealthy, and that's why Josh won't be getting together with tyler when theyre in a mental hospital. its not healthy for josh or for tyler.  
> TRIGGERS FOR THIS CHAPTER:  
> self harm mention  
> schizophrenia

Tyler wasn’t sure what to think that night. It was a silent moment after Josh broke the news to him, and it prolonged late into the hours of the moon and stars. Tyler simply sat on the edge of his bed and Josh took a long, hot shower. The sounds of the water hitting the tile soothed Tyler and Blurryface as best as it could, but Blurryface’s loud voice and his violent thoughts prevailed in the end. 

So Tyler got to his feet. The carpet felt soft and soothing upon his bare feet as he simply stood and stared at the wall. Its emptiness mocked Tyler as he stared at the yellow wall. There was no paint or pictures he or Blurryface had added. The bathroom was another story; coated in all black and insanity and infections. There was hope and death in the paint on his hands, yet he found himself illustrating with the latter instead. 

Thinking of Josh in his head, he dipped his hand into the black paint he’d stolen and hidden in his room. There were no brushes due to fear of either him or Josh breaking it in half and trying to kill themselves. When he’d been refused the brush, Blurryface had mocked them thoroughly for the rule even though he was perfectly aware Tyler would try suicide with a paint brush. 

“ _ Imagine that conversation in hell,”  _ Blurryface had thought to Tyler. “ _ Hitler walks up to you and is like ‘Yo, how’d you die?’ And you look that fucker dead in the eyes and go, ‘I slit my wrists with a paint brush’.”  _

Tyler admitted with shame that he laughed. Sometimes Blurryface was funny, and sometimes he actually liked his company. But most of the time, Blurryface was just words and ideas thrown together as though they were a drunk driving crash that sent glass splintering in your hands but not your jugular. 

And that night, Blurryface was not the cunning and witty jokes Tyler laughed at. That night, Blurryface was the crack in your windshield you had to pay $1000 for once it splinters throughout the entire surface, and when you drive over a pothole it explodes. It cuts your face and your arms, and then you’re paying for medical bills and in deep debt from some stupid crack. 

That’s what Blurryface was: the splinter in his head’s windshield gone unchecked. 

So Tyler ran his fingers along the wall, biting on his lip as he focused. 

_ Imagine it red…. Like his hair? No, like his lips. You know, when he takes a deep breath or he laughs or he bites his lip when he’s playing the drums?  _

Tyler did know. He’d become entirely fascinated with Josh’s lips and mouth, as creepy as it sounded. He loved the way his mouth split and tilted when he grinned that dorky grin, and how he bit on his lip as he concentrated on playing. The way his tongue darted out between his teeth made this weird fluttering feeling spark in Tyler’s chest, and sometimes he’d mess up in the song when they were performing. 

He especially fell in love with the words those lips made. The way Josh spoke to him as though he were apart of his fucked up head had given him hope. It made him realize he was not alone, and there were other people like him who understood the weird functions of his broken mind. From the first words Josh spoke to him to when Josh finally told him his own name, Tyler had become entranced with his voice and what it produced. 

And so he took the black paint and started with an outline. At first, it looked basic and meaningless; a light figure among the darkness of his thoughts and memories. His legs began to hurt after however long it took to get the sharp jagged edges of his shoulders and the length of his torso, yet he continued. 

By the time Tyler dipped his skin into the red paint, light was peeking through his blinds like curious onlookers at a crime scene. It was hesitant at first to show what Tyler had done, yet once it saw the controversial scene it spread. Soon Tyler was rubbing at his eyes, smearing paint along his face, to keep himself awake. 

This wasn’t just a painting. 

This was Tyler’s footprint upon this damned place. When he no longer remained, this painting would for him, and it would speak the hushed words of his admittance. 

Finally, Tyler stepped back with a deep breath. 

_ The red is bright, like his lips and like his hands. But not his wrists.  _

Tyler sat down at the foot of his bed, smearing the paint on his hands across his face. 

_ I love him.  _

Tyler closed his eyes. 

“I love him.”

* * *

 

Josh had barely gotten any sleep that night. Instead, he’d laid in his bed with his arms sprawled across his face, trying to calm his racing heart. 

He’d expected to be in Tree Pine for at least two more weeks, but just  _ one _ ?

Fuck, hadn’t he tried to kill himself not even a week ago? 

When his care provider had knocked at his door to tell him it was time for vitals, Josh stirred awake from his light and fitful slumber. He’d taken a leak and stepped out of his room when Tyler stepped out of his. Josh grinned at him, and then he actually  _ saw  _ him. 

Red and black paint was smeared all along his hands and face, and Josh fucking lost it. 

Laughter broke out of his chest at the sight, and he grabbed Tyler’s shoulder to pull him aside. They weren’t allowed to touch one another, but Josh’s laughter at how unpredictable Tyler was took ahold of him. Tyler looked up at him with wide eyes, and Josh calmed himself down. 

“Good God, Tyler, what did you do now?” he finally asked as he rubbed away the tears in his eyes, and Tyler smiled a small smile at him. 

“I made my mark.”

The care providers in the room finally noticed Tyler’s new appearance and ran over in confusion. They quickly looked him over, and stepped into his room. It was dark with little light from the window illuminating the room, but it didn’t take good eyesight to see the bright red on his wall. 

Fear immediately took grasp of Josh’s heart at the red, and he grabbed Tyler’s wrists and turned them over. There were scars and scabbed over cuts, but nothing new and Josh breathed a sigh of relief. Tentatively, he released Tyler’s hand and the boy rubbed at it, looking back towards the room. The care providers were freaking out, and Tyler smiled. 

“What…”

Tyler pointed into the shadows with an amused look on his face. “The graffiti on the highway is a new fine, but will this be a turning point, or will I die?” he mused aloud, and Josh frowned. He followed Tyler’s finger into the room, slowly stepping into it. The care providers were busy with whatever Tyler had done, and so he had a few moments to sneak in and take a peak. 

Josh could feel both the tension and Tyler’s excitement as he wandered in, and he understood why once he saw the large yellow wall across from the bed. There he was… Josh was illustrated beautifully upon the wall with intricate, bold lines. His hair was a flame among the black and white portrait, and Josh felt his heart stutter. 

Tyler must’ve spent so much time on this; possibly the whole night. And why? 

Why had he done it?

Josh turned to face Tyler in the doorway, and Tyler simply smiled. 

“Why?” Josh asked, almost to himself.

Tyler shrugged. 

“How else would you leave this place? Another empty room, or a handprint?” he asked, and Josh looked back towards the paint.

“You’re so insane,” Josh whispered, and he could feel Tyler’s heart break. So he frantically looked back with wide eyes and a rigid body, eyes wide and lips parted. “I like that.”

Tyler smiled. 

And so they stood among the chaos of their love.

They were brilliant, and insane. 

But the two often seemed to do well together. 

* * *

 

Of course, Tyler’s art had repercussions. He was under intense watch, if he hadn’t been already, and before the night fell, there was an intense search of his room. The damage to the wall would be paid by insurance considering he was mentally unstable, yet Tyler would not let them paint over it. 

“Not until he is gone, and I am too,” he told his care providers and doctors, who begrudgingly agreed. Josh felt this weird tightness in his chest, after the morning. If this wasn’t a clear indicator of something existing between them, then there wasn’t anything clearer. Yet Josh didn’t know what to do. 

He understood he was in this goddamn mental hospital to help himself, and while he still had the urge to take a blade to his skin, he instead played the drums, wrote music or simply slept it off. And now the classes he attended were boring and repetitive. He understood how to communicate and he understood how to cope. 

He didn’t want some cheap thing with Tyler where they loved each other in a fucking mental hospital for a week and then let it go. This thing he had for Tyler...it was more intense. It was growing with each day and each word Tyler sung and each chord he played.

And then there was Tyler and Blurryface. Josh knew this relationship could not thrive if Blurryface was controlling Tyler, hurting Tyler. For this to even have a chance at working, Tyler had to get better. 

They both had to get better. 

And Josh believed Tyler understood that as they sat at the same table and ate dinner in silence. They were both staring at each other, conveying their thoughts through quick glances and the twitch in their lips. 

They both wanted to just grab each other’s heads and smash their lips together, yet they didn’t. They both wanted to intertwine their fingers and just cuddle, but they didn’t.

They wanted to be happy, so they tried. 

But it took time, and neither wanted to wait.

Yet they did. 

There was a knock on Josh’s wall when the moon was high in the sky and an hour after Josh fell asleep counting the stars. Josh stirred slowly, turning onto his stomach as he leaned his forehead against the wall. 

“Hey, Josh?”

“Mmm...yeah?”

“Uh...I know we’re not supposed to ask but...uh...what’s your number?”

Josh groggily opened his eyes. Good god, did Josh wanna tell him. He wanted to just write down his number so once Tyler got out they could finally be happy, finally be with each other. But at the same time, he knew that with Josh’s number, Tyler would put aside himself and focus on him. 

Neither of them could afford that. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” Josh whispered to Tyler, and the other boy’s silence begged Josh to continue. “Once you get out of here, and once Blurryface is dead, I’ll find you. If this is meant to be, I’ll find you,” Josh murmured, and Tyler didn’t say anything for a few breathless moments. 

Josh felt his palms get clammy from the lack of Tyler’s response, yet his anxiety was quickly quelled by Tyler’s voice. 

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PLEASE...  
> leave KUDOS!!!!  
> leave a COMMENT!!!  
> even if the comment's a little silly thing, any comments are GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!  
> also,  
> IMPORTANT!!!!!  
> to celebrate 200 kudos, please comment what you would like for me to do to celebrate!!  
> i can do a little fluff, smut, or whatever!!!  
> THANKS!!!!  
> have a great day!!!


	11. Red Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler and Josh handle the results of their newfound deal; whether they be good, or bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont have much to say. i wrote this on a very, very bad day, and im tired and numb as i publish this.  
> i hope you enjoy  
> TRIGGERS:  
> hallucinations (auditory and visual)  
> self harm???  
> violence   
> thanks for reading!

Tyler and Josh’s newfound deal had both its good and bad results.

Tyler’s chest was even more of a hotspot for his tight, coiled anxiety that became more and more tangled as the week went on. When Monday came and marked their end beginning, Tyler hadn’t wanted to wake up, prompting his care provider gently shaking him awake. At first, he hadn’t realized it was their last Monday together here at Tree Pine. It hadn’t really struck him until he walked into his bathroom and finally looked at himself. 

His reflection had dark shadows under their eyes, and longer hair more shaggy and tousled than before admittance. His wrists lacked angry red marks which had become a normal sight to him, and instead consisted of scabs and scars. This was not the man he had once been, *but now the man he had become.

_ Thanks to Josh _ .

“No,” Tyler told himself with a scowl. “This is not just because of Josh,” he hissed, shaking his head. He itched at one of the scabs on his arms, biting on his lip. “We did this.”

_ We?  _

Tyler paused, taking a few moments to himself. Blurryface had been a huge factor in this entire stay at Tree Pine. He had influenced him to nearly die roughly three times, to make his mark and to end up in Hall 3. Yet none of that was good. None of it was what Josh would want. 

With that uncomfortable realization, Tyler took a deep breath and ran cold water over his face in hopes of waking him up and drowning his dark thoughts. The water seeped into his eyes and into his mouth, causing him to sputter and blink away the liquid. He gripped the sides of the sink, running his hands over his face to rid the water off of his skin and he looked back up at his reflection.

Yet instead of it being him, Blurryface peered back.

Blurryface wasn’t some dark demon with squiggly lines and chaotic eyes. Instead, red eyes peered back and black paint covered his eyes and his throat. There were more red lines along his arms, and they were deep and dangerous. While this hadn’t happened in a while, Tyler had seen Blurryface manipulating his vision in the past before. It was nothing new, yet it still made Tyler jumped back on the soles of his feet, eyes wide and terrified.

He’d thought Blurryface had lost some of his grip upon him. He’d counted on that for getting out and finding Josh once he was discharged. And now proof against all his wishes and wants stood in front of him, taunting him.

Blurryface stood against everything good in Tyler’s life; Josh, freedom and music. He was the blade he’d gotten from art class in the form of pencil sharpener after Mama could no longer sing him to sleep with her soft voice. He was the pills he’d counted with his tongue when he could no longer sleep. 

Blurryface was the darkness, and while Tyler was not the light, he was not as dark as his demons were. 

The hotspot of his chest began to constrict, making it difficult to breathe. Tyler furrowed his eyebrows, hands clenching by his sides as rage and fury began to pump into his system. Blurryface had destroyed his life. Blurryface had taken Tyler’s fragile world and crushed it, ignoring the glass that splintered in his hand. 

And Tyler was determined to take it back.

With a guttural cry, he launched his fist into the mirror, sending it into shards flying everywhere. He ignored the sharp pain in his hands as he drew back, breathing heavily as he looked down at his hand. Blood was dripping off of his broken skin, bright on the white tile of the bathroom floor. He looked back up to where his reflection once was, and saw that some jagged pieces of glass remained.

His door opened quickly as people frantically called for him, yet he paid them no mind. Instead, Tyler leaned forward, squinting at the glass that remained. He saw his eyes, and his face.

Hands wrapped around him, turning him away from the mirror as they inspected his hand. Yet his gaze remained upon the wall, upon his reflection.

Upon his red eyes. 

 

Josh had heard the glass shatter, followed by panic from the care providers as they rushed into Tyler’s room. He’d felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach as he looked up towards his friend’s room, swallowing a piece of his fruit platter roughly. There was the sound of slight sobbing and hushed whispers as doctors rushed into Hall 3. 

Josh’s care provider slowly approached Josh, sitting next to him as he watched the scene unfold in suspended silence. He’d thought Tyler was getting better, despite Blurryface resurfacing and his impulses getting worse. There had been hope swinging around in his chest for the longest of times, birthed in their midnight whispers and promises made in their beds. Yet now that hope had been left to collapse, and now it lay on the ground, dead. 

Josh stood up, shaking his head as he walked towards the exit doors. His care provider followed, understanding immediately what was necessary. Usually, they wouldn’t let him go, yet this was no ordinary situation. Whatever Tyler had done, it had made this Hall stiff and thick with tension. The air had become difficult to breathe, and Josh was desperate for a long, breathless inhale to fill him up and assure him was not drowning. 

His care provider ran their card along the card reader, and Josh desperately pushed the doors open, nearly collapsing as cold, open air rushed at him. However, he did not collapse to his knees, and instead stumbled into the music room. 

There his drums stood, elevated onto a small platform in the corner. The piano stood to his left, untouched and lonely without Tyler’s fingers and his voice singing and assuring him he was not dead. Josh felt tears come to his eyes as he looked for the presence of his bandmate, ignoring the obvious truth that Tyler had tried to break free from the restraints in his head. 

A hand rested itself upon his shoulder, holding him down from floating away and getting lost in his thoughts and being pulled down by his demons. “Play, Josh. Play.”

Josh did just that. 

He slowly walked over to his drums, picking up the drumsticks from his seat as he ran his thumb over the soft wood. There were no splinters stuck into his skin as he took a seat, looking over the white, yet worn drumset he had played almost every single day. 

And so Josh fell into himself; deep and dark, yet with the smallest glimmer of dying hope. 

 

At dinner, Tyler sat in his usual seat with his hand bandaged from cuts too deep. Josh was surprised to see him, assuming he’d been put on peer boundaries with him or forbidden from speaking with other patients. Yet the only punishment he had been given was constant supervision, and his room being locked at all times until he had to take a leak or sleep. 

Josh had taken a seat across from him, heart in his throat as they both waited for someone to speak. Taking a chance, Tyler opened his mouth and his voice sounded like an untuned guitar playing as best as it could as it squeaked. “I’m sorry… I think it’ll be a long time before we find one another,” he apologized, eyes peering up at Josh from under his brow. 

He’d seen that look plenty of times. It meant his demons were chewing on his heart and eating up his mind, plaguing his thoughts with loud voices and nothing nice. Blurryface was winning despite all of his efforts, so what could Tyler do to not die, for this deal to work? Could Josh use his words, or could God be the only one to fix this? At this point, both assumed God was fiction. 

“It’s okay,” Josh told him, unsure of what to say. Nothing was okay, not in Hall 3 with the sun always dimmed out by the windows as they talked in their seats. They could only say as many words as they could find, often lost in the shadows of their minds. Yet in midnight they could talk for hours, documenting their fears and counting their demons. That’s when they weren’t scared, and found God in one another. 

Tyler simply watched him for a few moments before looking down and taking a bite of their disgusting food. Josh watched him chew it for a moment, before his face scrunching up in disgust as he quickly swallowed it. Josh laughed loudly and Tyler did a strange, unseen cheeky smile, cheeks red. “It’s not too good,” he told Josh, and Josh nodded.

“I figured.”

“...”

Despite the comedic break in their tense situation, they both still waited for one another to bring up the subject they’d been avoiding. It was a difficult subject, a scary subject. It frightened both Tyler and Josh to even think about it, to face and confront it. Yet Josh was the most affected, and so he spoke.

“What are you gonna do when I...leave?” he asked Tyler, and Tyler looked away from him, setting his plastic fork down. The living area was quiet as their care providers casually spoke, and a movie ran on the TV behind them. Everything should’ve been fine...yet nothing was. Nothing was fine. 

“I don’t know,” Tyler told him, and Josh knew he was being honest. What were you supposed to do when your angel abandoned you? Josh knew Tyler had become dependent upon him, which was immensely unhealthy and Josh felt incredibly guilty for. So his absence would be hard, yet it would be good. Tyler could finally confront Blurryface without Josh having to sit and hear the screams and curses and demons being fought. Tyler could finally learn how to handle things without being able to put all of his anger and emotions into a harsh knock on the wall, waiting for Josh to reply. 

“You’re gonna get better,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler nodded, chewing quietly.

“I’m gonna get better.”

 

It was roughly seven pm when both Josh and Tyler walked into the music room together, fingers itching for their respective instruments. When Josh grabbed his drumstick, he immediately felt whatever fear disentangle and his chest felt more loose, more free and open. When Tyler played a few soft chords on the piano, he immediately felt Blurryface retreat into the depths of his mind and stitch its mouth shut. 

They both took their seats near their instruments, taking in the wood that composed each of their personal outlets. 

“What song should we play?” Tyler asked Josh, and Josh merely shrugged. 

“Maybe...that new one?” Josh suggested, and Tyler grinned his cheeky grin that made his dimples poke out and his eyes crinkle at the corners. Josh felt his heart increase its beat in his chest at the sight, and he returned the smile before looking back down to his drums. In the month he’d been there, the drums had become a permanent aspect. When he left Tree Pine, he would purchase one and write countless songs for him, and, hopefully, Tyler to play. He would become the best drummer possible for their band, or whatever it would be called. 

“I like that new one,” Tyler told Josh, and Josh laughed silently.

“It is unique,” Josh agreed, and Tyler did his breathless little bubbly laugh and Josh remembered the glass breaking and saw his bandaged hand still trying to play. He chewed down whatever tears began to rise, and hit his drumsticks a few times. 

“Am I the only one I know…”

 

Tyler woke up when the moon was high in the sky, mocking him as it peered down at him with clear distaste and disapproval for his open eyes. He wasn’t very sure why he had woken up, yet he didn’t think it over as he yawned, slowly sitting up.

He looked to his left, and saw that there was a man sitting in a chair that was planted in his doorway, reading a book. The man looked up at him, clearly surprised to see him awake and simply smiled and waved. Tyler nodded to him in a sign of respect, and stood up. 

Blurryface was strangely quiet and calm as he walked into the bathroom, prepared to take a leak. Yet as he walked into the bathroom, he wasn’t met with the painted over walls and the broken mirror over his sink. Instead, he saw a perfect bathroom. 

There was a soft buzz in the air as Tyler frowned, unsure of what to do or what to say at the sight. He turned around in a circle, observing the area with calm fascination. The bathroom looked exactly like it had when he had first been brought to Hall 3; back when he just knew Josh’s name and there were less scars on his arms. 

_ You’re a fuck up  _

_ _

Tyler stopped entirely, freezing in the middle of the bathroom as his heart dropped to his feet. His breathing became shallow as he forgot to inhale, frightened of startling the beast. What was this? Was this another projection from Blurryface?

Was Blurryface becoming stronger?

Panic took a solid, hard grip around his heart at the thought, and Tyler felt the hairs on his skin raise. “Stop,” Tyler whispered, voice barely even present. Yet Blurryface bowed to no one, especially Tyler.

_ You can’t even stop me for Josh. You can’t even stop me so you can make him happy.  _

Tyler shook his head, taking a sharp, hollow breath as he tried to calm himself down. Blurryface knew where to strike him, where the subject was sensitive and most prone to bleeding. And whenever Blurryface knew where to strike, he did; relentless and brutal. He would take his skin and tear it off as though it were entirely a scab.

And it left Tyler bleeding. 

“Stop,” Tyler told him, voice slightly louder now. He heard the book close by his doorway, and he frantically realized that his care provider was approaching him in concern. He couldn’t let him find him like this; scared and falling to a hallucination. So he took a deep breath, walking over to the imaginary pristine sink and turning on the water. He splashed water on his face, trying to wake himself up and calm himself down.

Yet when Tyler opened his eyes, the mirror was there, and his red eyes were back. 

With shrill scream, Tyler yelled, “STOP!!!” Swinging around and punching Blurryface hard. There a harsh  _ whoosh  _ as Blurryface went flying back, smacking his head on the tile wall. Tyler looked at him with wild, wide eyes as he breathed heavily, looking at his bloodied fist and then back to Blurryface.

However, it wasn’t Blurryface with a head wound, dripping blood on the ground.

With a cry for help, Tyler collapsed to the ground realized it was his care provider he had hit, and that Blurryface was getting stronger. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u enjoyed this, please leave kudos and a comment  
> thank u for reading !


	12. Twenty One Pilots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler deals with both Blurryface and his fears of Josh leaving with both music and his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloooo~~~  
> sorry for the lack of updates! i have an AP exam next friday and i will not updating until that's done. it's very important to me, and i will be studying very hard and extensively for it.   
> i hope u guys enjoy this chapter tho! thanks for reading!  
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
>  suicide mention  
> schizophrenia (voices and shit)

It was Wednesday, and it was raining. The droplets of water rolled down the glass Tyler was pressed up against, holding Tyler’s fascination as he watched them fall. He would trace the raindrop with his index finger, shaking and unstable but capable. The window was cold against his skin, keeping him  _ here  _ in his room,  _ here  _ in a mental hospital, and  _ here  _ in life.

And he hated that. 

After his incident, he’d been prescribed new antipsychotics with a higher dosage in an attempt to reign in Blurryface. Of course, Blurryface didn’t like that idea and made Tyler ridiculously sick whenever he took them. Most of the time, Tyler was bent over the toilet puking up his stomach as punishment for trying to tame Blurryface, or he had vivid nightmares of horrible things happening to both him and everyone he cared about. 

The amount of time Tyler was able to spend with Josh was limited due to Blurryface, and the most time they’d spent with one another had been roughly an hour in the music room. The piano’s keys and the microphone were the few things that could calm the storm brewing inside of him, belting out his harm and danger with words Blurryface had etched into him. 

This lack of time bothered both Tyler and Blurryface as they only had four more days with Josh. Blurryface blamed Tyler for this, for taking his medicine and decided to punish both of them for Tyler’s actions by making him sick. This, in return, made Tyler want to stop taking his medicine even though his doctors would punish him and Tyler would get worse, resulting in more time being sent in Tree Pine. 

Either way, Tyler was losing. And it drove him mad. 

At that thought, Tyler looked away from the window, looking down at his bare feet as he sat on the top of his desk. There were papers scattered everywhere. Some were underneath his body while others were crumpled and thrown aside. The ones that did matter were the ones Josh had, the ones that Tyler hid under the drums for Josh to find and read as they were not allowed to pass notes to other patients. Everything Tyler owned did not matter, not anymore. Not since Blurryface stopped giving him words to sing and Josh was left with the same songs and the same drums to play. 

Yet there was one paper the interested Tyler greatly. It was the one set by the window, words and ideas scribbled out hastily and hysterically yet some thoughts left out to fester, to ripen. Gingerly, Tyler took hold of it, looking over the lines with wide and curious eyes. 

The paper wasn’t anything special under Tyler’s eyes. There were random words written while other were shadowed by Tyler’s distaste and disapproval. Some were circled and underlined, and Tyler hung upon those words the most. Blurryface stirred at the words written on the paper, untangling itself from the knots of Tyler’s rusty and broken mind. 

**What’s that?**

Tyler tried not to reply, squinting down to try and understand what he had meant to say with his hands. These weren’t lyrics, no. But they were ideas, they were his thoughts. Tyler didn’t remember what they were for, but the bold ideas stuck out to him like Josh’s soft smile and the rain under the sun that afternoon. 

Tyler grabbed a pen he had stolen from a therapy session a few days prior to then, and grabbed the closest, emptiest paper he could. With a new, frantic need bursting in his chest as though it were dying star, Tyler scribbled and wrote as fast as he could. 

And when he was done, Blurryface sank back into the waves of his depression. 

_ ‘ _ **_Goner’_ **

Tyler began to write. 

 

At lunch, Tyler was merely poking at his food with disinterest while Josh slowly ate his salad, watching the movie that was playing on the small TV. Tyler wasn’t that hungry after writing down his thoughts and ideas, and when he saw Josh and realized they only had a few days left any hunger that he’d possessed had disappeared and evolved into hot anxiety. The thought of being the only one sitting at their normal table, eating shitty food with no one to complain about it too terrified him to no end. 

Tyler was scared. He didn’t want Josh to leave, and he knew that was selfish. He knew that how he was acting was rude and insensitive, but the anxiety and fear was too strong for him to just swallow. How could he swallow these feelings when he couldn’t even swallow his food?

Josh clearly took notice to Tyler’s troubles after some time of silence, swallowing loud as he frowned at Tyler. Tyler looked up at him from under his brow, unsure of what to both say or do. So instead he looked back down at his food, scratching at his hand nervously. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Josh asked him, and Tyler shrugged, shaking his head. He couldn’t trouble Josh. Sure, he was selfish and insensitive at the time, but he could never keep Josh here, even if he wanted it as badly as he did. He needed Josh to get better so that way their deal could stand. They both needed to be healthy for this to work.

But Tyler hadn’t been healthy ever since his father first raised his fist and he’d hidden under his bed. What was ‘healthy’? Was it going on jogs every morning and eating fruit for breakfast? Or was it opting  to sharpen your pencil instead of taking it apart for the blade? Tyler knew neither. Who would he be? Where would he be? 

What would he be?

“Nothing,” he told Josh, and based on Josh giving him his signature raised eyebrows and tight lips expression, he knew Josh wasn’t falling for it. Yet he didn’t know what to do or what to say, so he quickly grabbed for an excuse. “I was just thinking of a new song I wrote,” he told Josh, quickly directing it to a more easy topic, a topic that benefited them both. 

Josh’s eyes lit up in excitement, his lips turning up in his cheeky little grin. “Really? What’s it called?” he asked. 

“Goner.”

“What’s it about?”

Tyler shifted in discomfort, unsure of how to tell Josh it was about how Tyler couldn’t handle him leaving and how Blurryface was sure to succeed. So instead he shrugged, opting to eat food to deflect the question. “You’ll hear it later,” he told Josh, and Josh smiled, going back to eating his salad and watching the movie. 

“Only a few days left,” Josh mused aloud in between chews, and Tyler stiffened, nearly choking on his food. Yet he swallowed, looking back down towards his hands in his lap. There were angry red lines on his fingers from scratching, and he quickly pulled his sleeve over his hands. 

“Yeah,” Tyler replied. 

Josh nodded. “Yeah.” 

 

“So, Tyler, Josh is leaving in a few days. How do you feel about that?” Tyler’s therapist asked, legs crossed as he leaned back in his chair. His hands were folding on his knee, watching him carefully as Tyler weighed and evaluated an answer. 

“I dunno,” Tyler decided to say, unsure of what he could trust this man with. If he told him that Blurryface was getting stronger, Blurryface would punish him and they would increase his dosage again. If he told him he was distraught over Josh leaving, a whole new issue with Tyler and his treatment would arise, and they would probably separate them in their final days together so that their codependency could dissolve. Tyler was codependent upon Josh, not the other way around. And while he knew it was unhealthy, Josh would be leaving soon anyways. 

His therapist clearly didn’t believe him, a skeptical ‘hmm’ being hummed to the air. Tyler shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the silence and tension in the air. Blurryface began to claw itself back to the forefront of his mind at the tension and mention of Josh, sharp pains resonating throughout Tyler’s head. He resisted the urge to wince, and instead began to play with his sleeves. 

“Are the voices getting worse or better?” 

“You mean Blurryface.” Not a question, but instead an answer. Tyler hated it when Blurryface was called a ‘voice’. A voice is something you simply here, not something that haunts you and destroys every little bit of sanity you held. A voice is something you could turn music up to tune out, not something that would instead scream louder and make you paint the walls black with stars trying to pull you out of the dark. 

Blurryface was not a voice. Blurryface was Blurryface. And that was that. 

His therapist raised his eyebrows at Tyler’s insistence of Blurryface’s name and occupation, nodding almost to himself. “Well, is Blurryface getting stronger or weaker?”

Tyler knew the answer was dubious. Blurryface was becoming both. He screamed louder, but not as much. So Tyler shrugged.

“Have you written more songs?” 

“Yeah.”

“What about?”

_ About how I’m going to die and Blurryface will be the noose around neck,  _ Tyler thought, looking out the window. It was still raining, the world gray and wet and dark outside of Tree Pine. The rain taunted him, and he couldn’t recall the last time he had felt fresh air upon his face and raindrops getting stuck in his eyes. He missed it.

Tyler missed the freedom of simply walking and seeing the world. He missed counting how many stories a building had and contemplating if maybe today was the time to fly. He missed laying in the middle of the road, feeling the cold concrete playing with his skin as there was a soft rumble of a truck getting closer. 

He missed his freedom, or whatever it was. 

“I don’t know.”

There were twenty one raindrops on the window. 

 

The music room was empty despite Josh and Tyler simply sitting and waiting for one another. Their care providers sat outside, the door cracked ajar in case they began to plan their suicides together. Which Tyler wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t let blood cake his skin and the floors next to Josh’s room again. Not again. 

Josh simply sat behind his drums, drumsticks in his hand as he waited for Tyler to begin to play. “There...aren’t too much of drums in this one,” Tyler to Josh, and Josh simply shrugged with a small smile turning the corners of his lips. 

“That’s okay. I wanna hear this,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler smiled, slowly sitting near the piano he’d grown attached too. He knew how the keys worked, which ones were weak and which ones were strong. He knew how to press them and how to create the music that buzzed in his head like a fly that wouldn’t die. 

“Are you sure?” Tyler asked, voice barely there as he avoided eye contact with Josh. 

“Yeah.”

Tyler pressed the first key.

“I’m a goner…” 

 

“We need a band name,” Tyler whispered to the ceiling that night, arms over his eyes as he counted the stars of his eyelashes that kissed his skin. 

For a little while, there was no reply, and Tyler dug himself into the uncomfortable mattress, prepared to stay up all night until Blurryface would win. He would drag him into sleep, into the nightmares that made him sweat and weep. 

Yet finally, there was a voice there. A voice that crept through the cracks in the walls and played with Tyler’s ears. 

“What do you wanna call us?” Josh whispered, and Tyler shrugged to himself, unaware Josh couldn’t see him. “I’m guessing you just shrugged,” Josh told him, however, and Tyler couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Shut up,” he told Josh, and there was the slightest bit of a chuckle from the other room, and Tyler rolled his eyes, turning onto his side. “I dunno...what do  _ you  _ want us to be called?”

“Taco Frens,” Josh suggested, and Tyler choked back a laugh, fearful of getting in trouble for being both awake and loud again. 

“No,” Tyler giggled, and he imagined that dumb smile on Josh’s dumb face. 

“Uh...Tree Pine Pals?” Josh said, and Tyler shook his head, sighing loudly. 

“Guy Pals?” Tyler said in a high pitched, mocking voice, and he could hear Josh cough to try and cover his laugh. Tyler smirked to himself. 

“Uh, no.”

They both quietly laughed before falling into a comfortable silence, Tyler instead now looking out the window as he thought over their band name. He wanted it to be unique, be something only he would understand. He wanted it to represent him, to represent his selfishness and his fear. Tyler wanted it to represent his conflict. 

“Twenty One Pilots,” Tyler whispered, and Josh hummed. 

“I like that.”

“Me too…”

They both laid in their beds, waiting for either to speak up or to fall silent. They instead did the latter, and Tyler counted up to one hundred stars before Josh spoke. 

“I like Guy Pals.”

Tyler shook his head, laughing loudly and only falling asleep when they both got in trouble for talking and being too loud.

But that was okay.

It was okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!  
> PLEASE leave a comment!  
> PLEASE leave some kudos!  
> THANK U!  
>  have a great day !


	13. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh leaves, and Tyler remains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, shit guys. my AP test is tomorrow, yet with all this studying and working, my creativity has been growing and i had to get it out.  
> this is the end, yet there will be a prologue. it won't be long but it will get the meaning of this fanfic through  
> TRIGGERS :   
> religious references   
> suicidal thoughts  
> schizophrenia   
> codependency   
> if you can't handle any of that, then please don't read ! or read at your own discretion!   
> thanks!

It wasn’t okay.

It was Saturday, the day before Josh’s discharge. The day was covering itself in schizophrenic babbles and peeling fingernails from the scratches on the wall, sleep bothered by a voice that was neither Tyler’s or Josh’s. It grabbed his eyes and covered them with destruction and chaos with pills and blades and too many marks on his skin. 

It was death, and it enveloped Tyler’s heart in his sleep, drowning him in his own misery and insanity. The depth he was pulled into clawed at his lungs, ripping them to shreds as Tyler grabbed at his throat, desperately trying to live, to breathe, to swim. Yet it was too dark and too deep, and the hands on his ankles submerged him for too long, too hard. 

Tyler died, but he woke up with his legs tangled in his sheets and arms red from angry scratches. The air in his blood and in his lungs felt blissful, and he became an addict to the sensation and feeling of breathing as he sat on his bed. His black, distressed walls stared back at his wide eyes, taunting him with the mistakes and his goodbyes to Josh. Blurryface was especially pleased with the sight, playing the drums on his spine as it crawled up his skin, making Tyler freeze and hold his breath. 

**He’s gone.**

Tyler shook his head, dropping his head in his hands as he rubbed away at his exhaustion, his fear, his destruction. He could never scrub away his past and the hurt he’s caused, the pain he’s caused. But he could rub away the scabs of his sorrow, his anxiety, and ctry to clean away his sins. Of course, it never worked. Not when there was a demon tainting his blood and making him die with each passing day.

Of course, it never worked, not when there was the Devil standing in his bathroom, watching him sleep at night as it made a noose named “love” and “death”. Tyler desired both, and the noose became more and more of a seductive object, an expensive, fitted necklace made just for his throat and his bones. 

Of course, it never worked, not when the lyrics behind his mouth was leaving before the sun could rise on God’s day. Tyler believed this was a punishment from his God for watching the devil move in between the shadows late at night and trying death on to see if he could get his size for the robes of the afterlife, if there even was any. 

It never worked. 

Tyler eventually stood up, shaking for a moment and falling forward from both fear and exhaustion. His hands gripped the doorway of the bathroom as hard as he possibly could, knuckles turning white as Tyler tried to resist the devil’s temptation, hidden deep in his too dark shower with splintered tiles and red paint that wasn’t actually for art. The devil mocked him with his own thoughts, scraping up his mind and setting fire to his eyes. 

Tyler dropped to the ground of the bathroom, taking a deep breath as he shakily reached for the light above his head. The tile was cool to the touch as he blindly felt around for the switch, and when he did find it, the lights that lit up the room were harsh and brilliant. The devil shrank back into the shadows, leaving Tyler to his own demons and threats in the form of Blurryface and his own thoughts. 

With the harmful lights protecting him from his punishment, Tyler sprawled out on the ground, letting the coldness numb him from the pain of reality. Laying there, he could let himself imagine and assume that it was just another day in Tree Pine. He would get up in a few minutes, go out an eat shitty food, and play music with Josh all day. Then, they would go to sleep and talk about each other, of their dreams and mistakes, of their desires and fears, of how the lightbulb was sparking and Blurryface’s fingerprints blemished even the stars in the sky. 

Yet he knew that this night was the final night in which he could project Blurryface into the walls that separated Tyler from the love that battled with death in the rope of his personal noose. He knew that there would be no more knocks that woke him up late or early in the night, his heart beating wildly in his chest at the voice of Josh.

He knew that this would be their finale. 

And laying there on the cold tile of a rainy, Saturday morning, Tyler longed for just a few more episodes.

But God wasn’t kind, was he?

* * *

 

When Tyler finally felt the doorknob on his hand, it took a few breaths, a few prayers and a few tears to push it down, and push forward. It almost felt as though he were in war, as though the world was pointing guns at him and threatening that if he did not comply, everything he valued would be destroyed.

He didn’t know why he was so fearful, why he felt as though he had something to lose. There was only Josh, and this unhealthy, unrealistic utopia they had built as they dealt with the temptations of metal blades and the unending screaming frequencies of the voices in his head. It was stupid and foolish of him to assume this would last, that everything would be fine. 

They would have to leave each other eventually, Tyler just hadn’t expected it so soon. 

Tyler stepped outside of his room and into the living area of Hall 3, eyes on his feet instead of where Josh would be sitting. He couldn’t handle seeing the other boy, but at the same time the want and need to preserve their time together was nearly overwhelming, bubbling over the surface of his mind and heart. He was drowning in it, not capable of swimming within his own needs and fears and love. 

Yet as he walked forward to take a seat, he couldn’t help but look up to keep himself from hitting something and falling. So he looked up, and Josh’s dumb red head was the first thing that caught his attention. He was sitting there with his back to him, slouched over in a big, baggy sweatshirt. Josh’s hair was a mess; tangled and knotted but still beautiful and mesmerizing as Tyler approached their table. 

Josh didn’t look over at him until Tyler took his seat across from him, shrinking in on himself as he chewed on his lip. Neither said anything for a few moments as they simply stared at one another or avoided any contact. It was difficult for both of them to lose one another, to let one go into a harsh world which had tried to kill them more than once. Tyler would be stuck with the devil in his room, and Josh would thrust into the unforgiving, merciless claws of a world which only took, and never gave. 

Finally, their food was brought to them, disgusting and cafeteria-like. It was the daily oatmeal, and a weird mash of meat and God knows what else. Tyler’s face scrunched up both at the sight and smell, and Josh’s laugh took him aback, making him look up at the other boy in surprise. 

Josh’s dumb eyes were scrunched up from his big grin as he laughed, leaning back in his seat. Tyler’s face became hot and red as he smiled sheepishly back at Josh, unsure of what to say. 

“You’re so cute,” Josh laughed, and Tyler shrugged, looking back down at his food with scrunched up shoulders and a small smile displaying itself on his lips. 

“The rope says that I have nice skin; sweet and nice and easy to snap,” Tyler replied, and Josh, adapted to Tyler’s destructive words and fearful thoughts, shook his head, taking a bite of the sloshy oatmeal. 

“You do have nice skin, but it’s better for it to wear a necklace and not rope,” Josh told Tyler. 

“Not when you can see God in your doorway with dark skin and outstretched hands,” Tyler replied, and Josh leaned back in his seat, chewing his food as he thought silently. Tyler poked at his oatmeal, unsure of what to say or do. The food was disgusting, yet his stomach was rumbling and Blurryface urged him to eat so that way he could throw it up later. So Tyler put his fork down, bringing his knees up to his chest as he hugged them tightly. 

Neither of them really knew what to say to one another. They both knew it would be their last morning spent together, trying to eat this disgusting food and ultimately failing. Somehow, Josh always managed to eat the entirety of his oatmeal, a mystery in itself. Yet that morning, Josh only got halfway through it before sitting back and looking out the window. 

For a while, there was this mutual silence where neither knew what words to produce or what topics to say. There was this screaming in the radio of Tyler’s head, and whenever he tried to tune it so that the noises would stop, Blurryface would take control and cut his palm with his thumb. Josh was mesmerized by the sun rising outside the window, something Tyler didn’t really understand. The sun rose every day. Why was it worthy of his attention every day, especially that day of all days?

“The sun always rises from its sleep, yet it takes away the stars from me,” Tyler whispered, playing with his fingers under the table. Josh looked at him with raised eyebrows, a curious expression on his face. 

“The stars are pretty, but they still remain. The sun just glows brighter than them in the day,” Josh told Tyler, and Tyler frowned. 

“But the stars are a sun too, so why does the sun take up the noon?” Tyler wondered, and Josh shrugged. 

“Because it’s closer to us than those far away stars.”

“I want to go to those stars, and touch them,” Tyler told Josh, and Josh giggled that dumb little cute giggle he had. Tyler couldn’t help but smile back, cheeks flushed from the heat that boiled in his chest. 

“You’ll burn up,” Josh told Tyler. 

“That’s okay. If I’m with the stars, that’s okay.”

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t okay. 

* * *

 

For the morning, Tyler and Josh were huddled around their table, scribbles from their small pencils the only exchanged noises between the two. Their thoughts were being scrawled upon the paper in front of them, preserving their ideas and feelings in the moments that they had with one another. There would only be today, and then Tyler was left to the white walls and the empty hallways. 

Tyler was working on a song he had started shortly after his conversation with Josh, quickly writing down the shadows and highlights of his thoughts. The sun was distracting when he tried to find the words he could not say. Its rays hit Josh and his hair, illuminating him brighter than he already was. It was as though God were trying to taunt him, remind him of the light he would be losing in less than twenty four hours.

This was punishment for all in which he had done. He had done this to himself. 

He couldn’t afford to hurt Josh now. 

Josh was drawing something that Tyler couldn’t see. Whenever Tyler tried to peek at it, Josh would lean back and hide it with a large grin on his face. Tyler felt fear and anxiety begin to burn in his throat, yet when Josh noticed his fear, the boy said, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad.”

Tyler couldn’t help but try and peak, however. Josh was putting an obsecene amount of time and effort into the drawing, working on it from breakfast until lunch. Of course, Tyler was putting an obscene amount of effort in his song too, but that was besides the point. 

He assumed they were both trying to take this moment in their lives and make it history in their own personal books. Of course, Tyler did it in the forms of his words, of his voice as it shook and quivered underneath the pressure of loss. Josh did it with the sharp flicks of his pencil, eyes flicking up underneath his brow at Tyler or the great big sun behind him. It was a careful process, a scary one. 

And despite the beauty and fear Tyler both felt and witnessed in the form of the stitched up boy across from him, Tyler couldn’t help but plan. What would he do once Josh left? Would he swallow down Blurryface and the blades, determined to get out and find Josh? Or would he choose the devil over God, reaching into his skin to try and pull him down? 

Tyler was scared.

So scared.

* * *

 

“How do you feel about Josh leaving in the morning?” his therapist asked him, all wrinkles and old thoughts. He looked at him over his glasses, tapping his journal with his pen to a soft beat. 

Tyler avoided looking at the man in the eyes, and instead opted to look at the pen move up and down. It was a simple thing to watch, and with things so complicated, Tyler became mesmerized. He could predict where it would hit, when it would hit and what it would do when it hit. 

If only life were as easy as the dumb pen.

Tyler shrugged, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Blurryface was messing up the frequency in his head, again, and the knocking inside his head became unbearable to feel. So he began to rub at his wrist with his finger, instead. The therapist didn’t notice. 

“Okay, I guess,” he lied, still avoiding eye contact with his therapist. Of course he was lying. It was no secret they spent a lot of time with one another, that they knocked to one another in the middle of the night to talk. It was still a mystery to both of them how they didn’t end up getting peer boundaries, or getting punished. Neither were complaining, however. 

His therapist’s lips thinned in displeasured, clearly not satisfied with his answer. He shifted in his seat, lowering his feat to the floor. Tyler watched his movements, ready to call in Blurryface within a single breath. Blurryface would know how to handle him, how to lie, how to live. Tyler didn’t. 

But he was ready. 

“Is that so? You two seem awfully close,” his therapist pushed, and Tyler took a deep breath to calm himself. Where was Blurryface? Why wasn’t he coming? Why wasn’t he taking control?

Blurryface seemed to share a mutual anger and fear with Tyler, buzzing around in his head like a fly. The frequency began to be spun, a high pitched scream ringing in his ears. Tyler winced, rubbing at his head as he bit back tears. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I...I just have a bad headache,” Tyler told him, not a complete lie this time. Blurryface would not silence himself, throwing a tantrum as his eyes remained brown and not red. 

His therapist nodded, still looking at him with questions in his eyes and the corners of his frown. Tyler smiled weakly at home, rubbing at his temples in attempt to dull the pain.

“Alright… So, you’re okay with Josh leaving?”

_ No.  _

Tyler nodded slowly, looking back down at the floor. “Yeah.”

**No.**

“I’m okay.” 

* * *

 

Tyler sat in front of his piano, fingers laying upon the keys with no pressure or force. He simply sat there, unsure of where to look or what to say. 

Josh sat next to him by his drums, drumsticks in his hands as he waited for both Tyler’s ideas, or his cue. 

With them, they spoke in the silence, filling the empty space with their bodies and their illnesses. 

“I don’t want to leave,” Josh finally said, and Tyler closed his eyes. 

“You have to.”

“I know.” 

The sun was high in the sky as rain hit the window, and Tyler listened to the soft patter as he felt himself simply breathe. 

“Twenty One Pilots,” Tyler whispered, and he imaged that dumb smile Josh had on his dumb face whenever he liked what Tyler said. 

“That’s us.”

Tyler smiled. 

“Us.”

* * *

 

The last knock on the wall. It would’ve woken Tyler up if he’d been asleep, yet he sat on his desk, looking out the windows at the stars. His mind was a mess, unable to be sympathetic and let him sleep. The pills he took before sleep would’ve knocked him out if he hadn’t hidden them, and so he was left to his aggressive thoughts and billions of stars to count. 

His heart surged forward in his throat at the sound, and he turned to look at the wall as though it would reveal anything.

“Tyler?” Josh’s voice was barely there, yet it made Tyler smiled softly, climbing down from the desk. 

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

Tyler leaned his forehead against the wall, frowning to himself. He hadn’t really considered how scared Josh must be, his own fear overwhelming his train of thought for the past week or so. He didn’t really understand what the fear of returning to the world must feel like considering his treatment was long term. Josh’s had been long term too, but they’d cut it short. 

And that’s where they were now. 

Tyler swallowed roughly, debating on expressing his emotions, like Blurryface said, or consoling Josh. 

It was easy to pick. 

“Why are you scared?” Tyler asked, and there was a bitter laugh from Josh. 

“What happens once I go back to school? Everyone will treat me like I’m a freak, like I’m gonna kill myself again. They’re gonna call me fag, my parents won’t accept me… I’ll just end up right back here,” Josh hissed, and Tyler shook his head. 

“No… The blades went deep and so did their teeth, yet they use their tongues to make it numb” Tyler told Josh.

“No… They hate me because...because I’m gay. They hate me because I like boys… cuz I like you,” Josh sobbed, and Tyler was so tempted to just storm out of his room and go into Josh’s room, holding him instead of simply listening to him. 

It took a few minutes for Tyler to find the words he wanted to speak, and they were sparse. “Do you wanna hear a song I wrote?” he asked. 

“Yeah.”

Tyler smiled, sinking back onto his butt. He reached around on the ground in a lazy effort to the find the lyrics, and once he did he looked them over. He had gotten almost everything written down, except one line after the first. This song was personal to both him and Josh, and he couldn’t afford a mistake, or a dumb lyric. And the lyrics he kept placing to try and finish the puzzle never fit. 

“I...  The second sentence never fits, and it’s hard to trim the edges and keep it mine,” Tyler told Josh, and he frowned. “What’s your favorite quote?”

Josh laughed, and Tyler rolled his eyes at the image of his dumb smile. 

“Oh God… I dunno… There’s so many,” Josh thought aloud, trailing off in the end. Yet Tyler waited with patient eyes and his heart pulsing to a steady beat. After a while, Josh finally spoke however. “I know. ‘The sun will rise, and we will try again’,” Josh answered, and Tyler felt a smile come to his face. 

“I like that. I like that a lot.”

There was empty space between them again, until Tyler began to sing. 

“ _ Now...the night, is coming to an end…”  _

* * *

 

Tyler woke up to a paper thrown under his door, folded to hide its contents until Tyler picked it up and unfolded it. 

It had beautiful strokes and firm lines that made the portrait of Tyler’s face, shadowed by the sun behind him. Yet Tyler looked at peace in the portrait, while he felt anything but. It was beautiful, making Tyler drop to the ground in both disbelief, and love. 

He grabbed at his mouth, blinking away the tears that came as he looked at himself, realizing that Josh was gone. Josh had been discharged, and now the only things that remained were an empty room, black walls and the sun casting out both shadows and light. 

Tyler looked down the paper, and saw Josh’s final words to him. 

‘Stay Alive’ 

Tyler smiled. 

It was okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well... i hope you guys liked that  
> i listened to truce while reading this, so if you wanna do that i suggest it. it's really powerful.   
> thanks for reading!  
> love u al <3  
> stay alive |-/


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hOLy shit... this is it ! this is the final, conclusive ending. This is where i mark "completeD" and this fic is done.  
> good god. i can't believe it.  
> i started this fic to deal with the memories, the experiences and feelings i still had from my month spent in a mental hospital. of course, it's highly intense and emotional and it sticks with you, and is sometimes even traumatizing. i was haunted with my memories, unable to find any outlet of any kind for my experiences, and then one day i was reading a fic about tyler and josh, and decided "this is the perfect way to get it out"  
> not only do my memories and experiences and emotions find a way out through my words, but i also educate people, i also connect with people, and devote something to the band that saved my life  
> in fact, when i was in a mental hospital, i always requested twenty one pilots lyrics, which is a reason why i chose this fandom. also because a lot of their fans have mental illnesses, and i could connect with them and educate them  
> i also want to say that self harm is not a joke and it is not cool. do not cut just because you want someone to care, or you want a reaction, because it will develop into a habit and could even become an aspect of mental harm. do not cut. if it feels good, stop while you can. if you havent done it, don't. you will become addicted, and you will ruin yourself, your family, your friends and your body. you will end up in a mental hospital, and i dont want that to happen to anyone.  
> this fic should give you reason not to go to a mental hospital. the food really does suck ass, it's intense and it's emotional. it will ruin your family, and it will stick with you for the rest of your life.  
> if your struggling with something, talk to your family or a trusted adult. getting in trouble with your family but getting treatment is better than what i did, which resulted in awful memories for everyone involved. if you can't get help, tell a counselor.  
> you can all make it, okay? just like tyler and josh did. just like i did. after a year of suicidal thoughts and months of self harming, i'm here. i have a loving family, the best of friends, three amazing dogs (dogs are awesome okay) and i have never been happier. of course there's struggles and bumps in the roads, but if you realize that at one point or another you will become happy like you once were, it's easier to deal with.  
> i love all of you <3  
> stay alive  
> stay alive for me <3  
> |-/

The microphone had become a common feeling in Tyler’s sore hands. It’d become as familiar as the piano keys against the pads of his fingers, the pencil in his shaking hands as they scribbled down the thoughts that threatened of leaving him bare and broken. The microphone had become his anchor to this world after being exposed to it with naked skin and scared eyes. It’d grabbed him and held him as Blurryface ripped at his spine and made him fall to the ground with no hopes of getting back up.

The words he sang and the words people heard were what kept him going, what kept him living. From the smallest audiences of just six people, to the largest audiences of hundreds, the microphone had been there for him when he forgot how to speak, yet remembered how to sing. 

The microphone convinced him that if he sang long enough, that familiar red hair would pop up in the crowd and follow his voice as though he were a siren. He would sometimes sing louder in prayer of finding him, of seeing him after months of absence and loneliness. Sure, he had new friends and he grew closer to the family that remained, yet once you found salvation what could stop you from finding it, from searching for it? 

The answer was nothing. At least for Tyler anyways. 

The drum seat had been filled by a friend Tyler had found a few weeks after being exposed to the cold water. He could play and hit the beats just right, yet it could never be like Josh. The way Josh hit the drums with his entire body, his entire being could never be copied by anyone else. How Josh lost himself the beat, in the heat of the song and the screams of Tyler’s thoughts and feelings, could never be passed on to someone else.

So Tyler kept looking, kept searching for him. 

Yet the months wore on, and the songs stopped being written. 

And Tyler feared he would be lost in the snow, buried six feet under with no more fears. 

 

Chris and Tyler had grown close over the months of them performing together with crowds never predictable. They were finally going somewhere, however. They could feel it in their bones. 

And the encore they got that night made Tyler’s heart rise in his chest, his anxiety hot in the pit of his stomach. Chris, of course, played it off well. He always did. He always knew what to do to make the situation better, to make it bearable for Tyler. They joked with one another just like they did in the backstage, in their car when they were traveling to wherever a new place would take them. 

The encore came as a surprise. Neither of them expected to be called back out on the stage to perform another song. They were still small enough for an encore to be surprising, and when they prepared to perform ‘Johnny Boy’ they weren’t even prepared. Chris kept starting too early for Tyler, and the embarrassment Tyler felt was played off by Chris. 

That entire night had been a blur, a surprise in itself. The crowd had been involved with their music, singing along with them and swaying to the beat. There’d been a few hundred jammed into the hall, and so sweat clung to Tyler’s skin as he dealt with this newfound fame. Of course, he wasn’t famous. He wasn’t anywhere famous. But the hundreds of eyes laid upon him with his music crammed into the cracks between the bodies he counted in the crowd, he felt as though he were. 

It was new.

It was okay.

His nerves were visible, to him anyways. He began to warm up on the piano, and Chris began to play far too early. 

“I’m not ready yet,” he told Chris, who looked at him sheepishly. Yet in that stare, the other man was encouraging him that he was fine, that he was good. So Tyler took the nerves, wrung them out and, after a few more jokes onstage to calm himself down, began to play. 

“He stays home from work this time…”

The words flowed off of his tongue effortlessly as he played the keys to go with his song. When he opened his mouth to sing what he had once written down, he often times fell into it as though it were a straightjacket. It wrapped around him with tight grips, keeping him steady and safe. Yet it was more welcoming than a straightjacket. 

Why did he compare this to a straightjacket?

It was once he began to belt the chorus did he finally lift his eyes off of the keyboard and out into the crowd, trying to memorize the faces he saw. These were the kids who had found themselves in his music, who connected with him. These were the people who felt as though a part of them was being represented by Tyler, who had been where Tyler once was and resurfaced from the dark waters right next to where Tyler was. 

These people looked to Tyler for reassurance that this is where they belonged; jammed into this hall with one another singing the same words but with different tunes. 

So Tyler sang, and the people sang with him. 

It was okay. 

 

It was after the show, late in the cold night of November where snow stuck to the pavement and the frost coated Tyler’s skin. He was sitting outside of the hall, drinking water to recover from the hectic, loud night he had instructed. Chris was still inside with their guitarist, probably celebrating the night and talking about the experiences. Yet after shows, Tyler often went off on his own, connecting with the stars he had often counted in a cold bed cornered by black walls. 

He didn’t mind that it was cold. In fact, he enjoyed how it nipped at his hot and sweaty skin, keeping him on Earth’s ground and not floating into the endless void of space. It reminded him he was alive, that he was okay. 

That it was okay.

“There he is,” a female voice said in the distance, and Tyler looked towards the source of the voice. A few feet away a small group of people stood with large smiles on their face, slowly walking towards him. A smile came to Tyler’s face too as he realized they were fans, standing up to greet them. 

In fact, they looked rather familiar as they grew closer, faces red from both the cold and excitement. 

Tyler furrowed his eyebrows as they grew even closer, features much more familiar yet he still could not put a name to the faces. “Do...do I know you?” he asked with a soft smile, and a girl with brown hair nodded with a large grin on her face.

“Yeah! My name’s Abigail, and this is Jordan and Ashley,” she introduced, and Tyler frowned, chewing on his lips to try and think back to where he’d seen them.

And it clicked. 

“Oh my god.”

They looked at each other with nervous smiles, but happy eyes. 

“Follow us.”

 

_ Mama.  _

Tyler turned the corner, hands dug into his pockets as he played with his phone. His chest was expanding with his breaths, and collapsing in on itself as he exhaled desire and fire. 

_ Mama, I think I found it.  _

There was that red head, messy and crazy yet beyond recognizable. Red like his wrists once were, and red like his lips still are. 

_ Mama, I’m alive.  _

“Josh,” he breathed. 

_ Mama, I’m alive.  _

Bright eyes, like the sun rising behind them and outside dirty, white walls. 

_ Mama, I’m alive.  _

“Tyler.”

_ Mama, I’m okay.  _

Warm hands, scars on skin, and a soft kiss exploding like the universe and the stars. 

_ I’m okay.  _

“You stayed alive,” he breathed. 

_ I’m alive.  _

Tyler laughed. 

_ I’m alive.  _

“I’m alive.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love every single one of you  
> i may do a sequel, i may not. comment what you'd like !  
> please comment what you thought of this story, what you liked, whatever. seeing your comments makes me so happy i cannot express how happy it makes me. i see a comment and i smile and sometimes cry out of happiness. so yeah  
> ha <3  
> i love all of you.  
> stay alive.  
> <3  
> <3  
>  **UPDATE: MAY 10, 2016!**  
>  hello! a few people have been requesting a sequel, and since i can't make up my mind, i've made a poll for people to take !  
>  **IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOUR INPUT, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK!**  
>  http://goo.gl/forms/H9JekRWCS2  
> THANKS!!!  
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> if this gets 15-20 kudos then i'll add onto it !!! sorry, i just want to know that this fanfiction is both wanted and liked !!!  
> thank you for reading!!!  
> leave feedback !!!  
> have a nice day!!!


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